The Circle Now Is Made (King's Way Book 1) (13 page)

“Don’t you mean walls have… you're as pissed as Greg here,” Ten muttered quietly, and then aloud: “How're we fixed for a bit of after-time drinking tonight, Elaine?”

Elaine was well away by that time. “Cat’s away,” she said with a grin, and pushed her glass up to the optic for the seventh refill. As she spoke, Greg stirred for the first time in ten minutes or so - and asked which way home was.

“That way pal,” said Hud with a sly smile, and Greg decided to aim for an average between two doors before attempting to stagger off in several directions at the same time.

*

Greg woke to find himself in complete darkness. He pressed the backlight button on his watch and squinted at the dial. Almost two thirty. At first he thought he'd woken in the caravan, but he was seated uncomfortably, his head was splitting and every fibre and bone in his body ached. He'd a vague recollection of stumbling into the compartment while the lights were on; ready to burst as he'd struggled to remain upright on the slippery surface. So, to relieve his aching bladder, he'd wedged himself into a dungeon it seemed.

Just till my head stops spinning.

He recalled deciding that the only way to get any privacy in such places was to wedge one's feet against the door, the bolts invariably having been smashed by vandals.

Never met anyone who was inside when a bolt got smashed
, he marvelled drunkenly to himself,
but the bolts must have been fastened from inside to enable the bastards to break 'em from the outside. Must be terrifying!
" Greg couldn't remember which cubicle he was in.
Is it trap one, or two? Must be one of 'em - or both.
He giggled uncontrollably at his gag, then eased himself forward in an effort to stand - though he couldn't quite make it. He was just about to try again when he heard voices.

They must be still drinking in the bar!

The voices grew louder. They were unmistakably those of Hud and Ten, now standing
in
the toilets - only a wall panel dividing them.

"You should have written it down," he heard Hud say. "Not wiped it off the machine and tried to remember it. Every time you've told it to me, Penmaric's message has been different. You must be thicker'n a Gurkha's foreskin!"

"Look," replied Ten, "I've told you the answer's in that car somewhere. Give it a bit longer and we'll strip it out."

Hud let out a long groan and remained silent for a few seconds. "We'll have to leave shortly anyway," he said eventually.

"Mmm," replied Ten, "Elaine's so pissed she's ready to pass out. We'll 'ang on another half-hour before we get down to the coach-house."

"That first time you told me the message; some time back - in the bar, remember," digressed Hud. "You sure Eddy didn't hear us?"

"Positive!"

"Hmph. Bad job almost." Hud sighed and added sarcastically: "We could do with askin’ him! Was anyone else in that night who might've heard?"

"Only the grubby little tramp, and I ain't seen him for weeks."

"Probably found the pictures and pissed off to Brazil!" snorted Hud, "an' I've only your word it's pictures we're after."

"I've told you," insisted Ten, "I used to drive Penmaric to the auctions. Safer from the taxman than cash in the bank, an' although 'e never said what the packages were, I'd clocked it alright."

"'Bout the only thing you did get to know," wheezed Hud. "What grieves me is that we've got to burn the bleeding things when - or if - we ever find 'em."

"I'd burn me ‘ouse down for the money we'll be paid," whispered Ten."

"Same 'ere, I reckon," rasped the square man. "In fact, I'd burn 
your
 house down for fuck all!"

Suddenly they were silent. Greg held his breath. 
Have they left?
 Then he heard Hud say: "Just tell me one more time what happened the day Penmaric kicked it?"

"Not a-bleedin'-gain," grunted Ten. "Like I said, I found him lookin' like death; tryin' to write a note but he was shakin' too much. The he told me there was a message on the answer-phone for Nigel. Very urgent. Then he kicked it, so
I
 played the tape back. It was Penmaric's own voice, an' he said,
Edwin Ralph will help you
; then somethin' about
petrol; details bein' in the car… an' a stripper's name
…"

"Sounds like the outline of a drama to me…."

The voices trailed off as the pair returned to the bar, believing themselves and Elaine to be the only people in the building. It would be untrue to say the experience had sobered Greg, but it made enough impact to restore urgency to his fuddled brain. 
So there was a message! And whatever it contained was heard – possibly in its original and most accurate form - by the 'man with a bag.'

Greg somehow focused on his watch again. "Another half hour before they leave!" he moaned, "maybe more." He cursed that there was no way out other than through the bar. There seemed no alternative, without revealing his presence, but to wait until Hud and Ten left before he could get down to the coach-houses - hopefully before they did.

He winced as he turned his head slowly; it was so sore he was afraid to move at all. On the wall behind him, directly above, was a small hopper window that opened onto a narrow walkway at the rear of the pub. "If only I'd the energy to reach it," he groaned. Slowly, painfully slowly, Greg drew himself up and stood on the toilet rim. Wincing from the pain, he somehow managed to open it and squeeze his head and arms through. Greg then wriggled to the point of no return before realising, due to differing levels, he was some distance above the ground outside.

No time for speculation on the architectural layout of the pub, though
.

He continued to inch though caterpillar-like until he dangled precariously from the hopper window, his hands still some considerable distance from the ground. His head still throbbing. Suddenly Greg realised he was no longer moving. Twist as he might he was stuck. The thought of being challenged in such an uncompromising position terrified him.

I could have my head battered in and not be able to lift a finger.
He writhed violently until his jeans suddenly tore, one leg completely parting from the rest, and he was delivered to the ground with a resounding thump. Blood pulsed through his head as he rose unsteadily and retrieved the leg of his jeans from the window catch.

Thank God it was my jeans that were caught!

"I'm going to be pushing it to make it to the garages," he muttered aloud as he stumbled along, envisaging himself the following morning with an ice-block strapped to his head. It felt in fact that it was there already, clunking against his skull with every step.

"Better stop and rest," he muttered again after about only fifty yards, "From what they said, I should have more than twenty minutes to play with."

Chapter Nine

Cyril Gorby was an insomniac. He'd lain awake for hours worrying about the extra responsibility he'd soon be taking on - in the form of the part-time work Vance had offered. His wife, snoring gently beside him, had no such problems.

The job description encompassed general administrative running of the estate, together with security duties, though all Vance really wanted was a rubbing rag, general dogsbody and nightwatchman.

"The job shouldn't involve too much hassle," Cyril muttered to himself as he stared at the ceiling. "But should I have committed myself?"

Cyril had for years been a clerk in an accounts office, so the paperwork was no problem. "But will it be too much on top of my other commitments?" he pestered. Besides being a perpetual nuisance, he was already engaged in numerous surplus (and in many ways superfluous) activities. He was chairman of the golf club; secretary for the cricket and bowling clubs; church warden and school governor; and, if it reached fruition, he felt sure he'd become a prominent figure on the local crime-watch committee. As if that wasn't enough, he'd also fancied becoming a councillor and Special Constable, and might have succeeded had the local constabulary and electorate bothered to acknowledge his existence.

The duvet had slithered to the bottom of the bed as a result of Cyril's constant tossing and turning, exposing his wife's immense rear. It shone like a dozen full moons in the glow of the street lamp outside. Cyril, with all his other problems, couldn't face the sight, so he elected to get up and make tea.

He whimpered with cold and worry as he waited for the kettle. Although it was turned two-thirty, he'd left the kitchen lights off in case one of "those infernal all-night drinkers" wandered by and spotted him. "I can do without their bloody nuisance," he muttered as he eased aside the lace curtains and peered out onto the narrow walkway – all the time afraid he might actually see someone. Cyril flinched as he spotted a rat immediately beneath the window; it looked cold, and stiff, and uncomfortable - but then it would, he reflected. It was dead.

"Bastard's slung it back again! I'll bury it tomorrow." Cyril and a neighbour in the adjoining cottage had waged a silent war with the rat for days, neither wanting to admit it had died on their property, and was therefore their responsibility. Gorby had found the stiffened rat one morning on its back, rigid legs in the air.

"It never died in that position!" Cyril had re-assured his hysterical wife, "It's died on that twat's garden and he's slung it over here - uncouth bastard!"

The village bore had played 'pass the rat' before, with immense success. He'd got rid of previous neighbours by skimming a large grey one through a redundant cat-flap in their kitchen door. The doctor had visited the neurotic lady later that day, and a 'for sale' sign had appeared the following morning. "If I could get rid of that bastard I'd hire the pied piper!" he told his wife.

Cyril sipped fretfully at his tea; he always felt nervous when alone in the dark. “Of course,” he reassured himself, “I'll become immune to those kind of idiosyncrasies once the neighbours follow my lead and set up a crime-watch committee.”

Suddenly he recoiled in disbelief; retreating to the kitchen corner. There was a man hanging from the toilet window of the Holly Tree opposite. Upside down and wriggling like a snake! Cyril’s flaccid frame wobbled like a freshly un-moulded jelly as he found courage to take another peep. Again he retreated in panic. He’d glimpsed the dimly-lit figure as it disappeared into the pocket of darkness beyond the street-lamp. Half naked, it appeared!

With trembling hands he dialled the local PC. “This’ll show Stubbs I mean business!” he muttered. “See if he sneers at my suggestions for a watch committee again!”

PC Stubbs was annoyed at being disturbed, particularly by Cyril Gorby.

“All the same if I’d been asleep!” he bawled down the phone at the gormless Cyril, “as it is I was listening to the fight direct from America. Now I’m going to miss it through you and your bloody insomnia!” His podgy face grew redder by the second as he paused for the caller to reply.

“What do you mean you’ll listen for the bastard result?” he raged when Cyril had finished. “I could have gone to bed and listened to the result tomorrow anyway - the whole idea of being up at this godless hour was to hear it first-hand. Not second-hand from a pig’s tit like you!”

Stubbs slammed the phone down and prepared to make his way to the Holly Tree. Before leaving though, he placed some carefully crafted heel wedges into his shoes: they were cripplingly painful but he hated being called short-arse.  “Probably somebody screwing one of the barmaids and been disturbed by Vi!” The disgruntled PC tottered unenthusiastically down to the gully, to find Greg, head in hands, seated on a low wall, unable to continue without rest. “Better come back to the station with me,” he said, as he led the protesting Greg to the village ‘nick’.

 “Now then, sir,” said Stubbs as the pair sat in his office, “perhaps you can tell me why you were seen, in an inverted position, abseiling down the wall of the Holly Tree public house?” He sniggered at Greg’s bare left leg and added, “Half naked accordin' to my source.”

Greg, dismayed and befuddled, knew that whatever explanation he gave would meet with derision - more particularly the true one. “I got locked in the toilet and couldn’t make anyone hear,” he said with a half-hearted shrug.

“Sounds
un
reasonable enough,” sneered Stubbs. “I’d better check this out - follow me sir.” The constable led Greg to the rear of the building. “Wait in there sir,” said Stubbs blandly as he directed him through a door at the end of a darkened passage; Greg, believing himself to have been led to a waiting room, passively obliged. Until the metal door clanged behind him. Greg immediately broke into a cold sweat; overcome by irrepressible trembling. Like twenty hangovers at once, his nightmare had come true!