Cruise the Storm

by David Chilcott

  It was nothing to do with McBride, and anyway he was a fair distance away, so he walked on up the path and reached the first of his painting spots. He wandered about, to frame the view. When he had decided, he erected his easel, which opened out into a box on a tripod. The box contained his brushes, paints, and a container of water. He accessed it from a drawer, which he pulled out in front of the stays supporting his drawing board. For the next two hours, he worked steadily and with concentration. He lifted the board off the easel, set it against a nearby tree, then sat down on the grass, and studied the painting. It was finished, he decided. The art of painting was, he had been taught long ago knowing when to stop. Over-painting was a professional hazard, which he decided he had avoided.

  He packed up his easel, and decided to go straight on to the next scene, not going back to the pub for lunch. He had a bar of dark chocolate in his pocket, which would suffice. He would continue painting this afternoon. Tomorrow might bring rain.

  He was back at the Wellington Arms at half past four, finished for the day. He left his art gear in the boot of his car, and went into the public bar.

  The girl he had seen in the woods was standing at the counter, a glass of wine in her hand and a hotel key lying beside her purse on the bar itself. McBride went up to the bar as the manager bustled in, summoned by the bell on the door.

  "Hello, Mr McBride, you want your room key? The weather has been fine for you," he put the key on the counter.

  "I'll have a half of lager as well, please"

  The manager pulled the half pint, got a new beermat from under the bar, laid it on the counter, the glass on the mat. "I'll put it on the account, Sir," and with that he was off.

  McBride took a long pull at his drink, and turned to the girl. "I saw you bird-watching this morning when I was walking up the path on the hill. I didn't call out in case it frightened the bird."

  She smiled slightly, and studied his face, weighing up what to say, McBride thought. He looked back at her with patience, the glass in his hand. Finally, she said:

  "You knew I wasn't bird-watching, didn't you?"

  McBride smiled and nodded.

  "Who are you? How do I know you aren't one of them?"

  "Whoever they are. I'm John McBride, a watercolour painter, of whom you may, or may not have heard. You can ask mine host, he will vouch for me."

  "I suppose you aren't one of them. You look too good for that."

  McBride sipped at his beer. "Kind of you to say so. I did notice that you had your glasses trained on the protesters' camp."

  "I will ask the manager to vouch for you. If you are who you say you are, I'll come into the lounge bar after dinner, and then we can talk. If I'm not there you will know I can't trust you."

  McBride grinned at her again. "And ditto, if I'm not there. What time?"

  "About half past nine." She picked up her purse and room key off the counter, and without a backward glance, she went through the door to the bedrooms.

  McBride had finished dinner at shortly after eight thirty. He had been hungry, missing lunch, and had eaten early as a result. He told the waiter he would take coffee and a brandy in the lounge bar and perhaps he would arrange for it to be brought to him.

  There were only two couples in the room when he entered, and he chose a table in the corner where the girl and he would not be overheard. If she turned up, that was. He could hear the protesters through in the public bar, shouting and laughing. He went to the door and closed it. He had finished his coffee, and was halfway through the brandy when she arrived. She sat down across the table from him.

  "I passed," he said.

  "Yes, of course. I'm paranoid, I suppose. But I'm so worried."

  "I'll buy you a drink, what will you have?"

  "What are you drinking?"

  "It's a brandy, do you want one?"

  "Yes please." And McBride raised his hand at a passing waiter. "I thought this table is secluded enough for a confidential discussion. But we had better wait until the waiter has brought your drink. How long are you staying here, at the pub?"

  "I'm going home tomorrow. I have to go, my holiday is over. I go to work again on Monday."

  chapter two

  The waiter brought the girl's brandy and McBride scribbled his signature on the chit.

  "Now tell me the story"

  "Well my name is Jenny. I have a brother, Ben Stockton. He works as a freelance journalist. Digs out feature stories, sometimes gets commissions, but usually writes the story and hawks it round. He writes for four newspapers mostly, so he knows his markets. I think he does quite well.

  "He was actually on a commission about unemployment, and do the foreigners get most of the jobs, that kind of thing. He interviewed young people, and job-centre managers. You can imagine the routine. He told me that, the last time I saw him. But he also told me that he was working on something else."

  "What was it?"

  "He thought that some large organization was running the fracking protests."

  "Of course, one of them is the Green Party."

  "They don't have a lot of money. Ben had visited a job-centre to talk to the manager, and then some of the applicants. Just as he was coming out there was a guy standing on the pavement stopping applicants and talking to them. Ben was interested to know what was going on, so he hung around. He found out this guy was offering big bucks for young men to go and protest at the local test drill site."

  McBride pondered. "That fits, I always wondered how they got youths who looked like long-term unemployed. People who you think would prefer to be couch potatoes watching daytime television, rather than living in a tent in the countryside in the cold and rain."

  "That's what Ben thought. I never saw him again. He said he was going to follow the fracking story up. He was quite excited. I thought nothing of it until he hadn't been in touch for a fortnight, maybe more. I tried to get him on his mobile, since I couldn't get him at his flat. The mobile is dead. Wrong number, please try again, is all you get."

  "Why did you think he would be here, Jenny?"

  "This is the nearest site. There's nowhere else for me to try."

  "And have you spotted him? Why don't you walk to the camp and ask if he's there?"

  "I've tried that. The Green Party people are nice, and try to help, and then some burly guys come along, and the Greens just clam up. They're frightened, I'm sure."

  "Why not go to the police? You can say he's a missing person."

  Jenny drained her glass. She was becoming overwrought. "I tried that, too. They took the details of him down, and I signed a statement as well. But if you report an adult as a missing person they think he probably cleared off on purpose. It's not until they've got an unidentified body that they look at the missing persons' file." Tears were streaming down her face. McBride pulled out a clean handkerchief from his top pocket, and offered it to her.

  She mopped her face, and smiled at him through her tears. "I'm sorry, it's just getting to me."

  McBride stared into the distance for a while. Jenny fussed about repairing her make-up.

  He said: "I might be tempted to nose about down there, offer to join them. Painting is a quiet life, and I do like excitement occasionally. Give me your contact details, and your brother's details as well. Then let me have them before you leave tomorrow. I can't promise to solve the case, but I will report back to you."

  "Are you sure you want to do this? It could be dangerous, must be for something to have happened to Ben."

  "I might be an artist, but I still look after myself, and I used to be in the SAS Regiment. That was good training. Come on, have another drink."

  Next morning at breakfast Jenny walked up to him and put two sheets of writing paper, folded once, down on the table. "That's the information you wanted. I'm leaving now, but there's my phone numbers among the information. Take care. Don't be stupid, taking chances."

  He smiled up at her. "Don't you lecture me, young lady."

  She smiled back
. "Goodbye," and walked out of the restaurant, suitcase in her hand.

  Whilst he finished his toast he looked at the notes. Comprehensive. Addresses, not just hers, but her brother's too. Dates, as well, she had written down.

  He decided he would have today finishing another couple of paintings, and tomorrow he would visit the protest site. He had to keep his agent off his back. The only way to do that was to give him paintings to sell.

  On Monday morning McBride checked out of the Wellington. He asked if he could leave the car for a week or so, and offered to pay rent for the space. The manager said five pounds a week, and McBride thought that was very generous of him and agreed. He said he was meeting a friend, and they didn't want the hassle of two cars. Next he took his case to the car, and stowed it in the boot. He pulled out an old rucksack, and transferred some clean underwear, and a small sketchbook 6 inches by 4 inches. He included a few casual shirts. He put the rucksack over his shoulder, then remembered to add a heavy sweater, and a waterproof anorak.

  He locked the car, and strode off down the road. As he approached the fracking site, he saw a heavy truck parked on the roadside. Two police cars were behind it, blue lights flashing, engines running, he could see the exhaust smoke. It was noisy with shouts and boos coming from a rabble of people around the site entrance. Placards waved, and police were attempted to move the crowd to allow the truck access to the site. Now was not the time for McBride to introduce himself so he stayed well away, and sat on a milestone a hundred yards from the fracas.

  It appeared that there were six policemen at the site, and eventually they drew truncheons. Two men were arrested and brought back to the police cars.

  At this stage the one police car with four men inside forced their way through the crowd and on to the field. The truck followed, inches away from the police car's bumper and picked up speed along the track. The police car did a u-turn in the field, and joined the other car to speed away with the two prisoners. The protesters remained agitated and milled around for a few minutes before drifting back to their camp.

  Most of the protesters were sitting round a campfire when McBride walked across the field towards them. When they spotted him, a grey bearded thin man stood up, and then started to walk to meet him.

  "Can I help you, Sir?" he said. He was wearing a large badge on his lapel with Green Party written across it.

  McBride smiled at him. "I hope so. I'm on a walking holiday. I was coming down the road just as the police started attacking you. I thought that was a bad show." Letting some indignation appear. McBride thought he might well have got work as an actor.

  "We're only trying to protect our planet," said the bearded man. He had a very educated voice. Public school, thought McBride. "Fracking will pollute our water supply, and result in climate change. It's happening already."

  McBride had his own opinions on that, but he was not about to air them now. "I have a lot of my holiday left, I would love to join you in your fight, if you would have me?"

  "Personally, I would say welcome, but it is not up to me to decide. I have to consult with the coordinator. Come and meet him."

  He turned to walk back to the campsite. McBride walked alongside. "It is a good job it's summer. Bit chilly here in winter, I would have thought."

  "We protest all year round, we can't let the planet be destroyed."

  It was his mantra, thought McBride, he can't let it go, otherwise he would just ask himself why he was here.

  McBride could see a large man rising from his seat, standing now, and watching them. He wore a beard, too, but black, the kind that McBride called a pirate beard, but trimmed neatly. He was tall and muscular but not fat.

  'This young man has offered to join our fight," said the Green Party man.

  The large man towered even over McBride. "What's your name?"

  "John McManus" McBride knew, as he had whilst crossing the field that he had blown it. It wasn't going to work.

  "We don't need people we don't know. I'm sorry." And he turned away to sit down in his chair. Interview over.

  McBride started back to the entrance gate. When there, he turned and looked at them, and it looked as if the big guy was giving the Green Party man a dressing down.

  McBride went into the Wellington Inn, and the manager came through behind the bar. "My word, Mr McBride I didn't expect to see you so soon. Have you forgotten something?"

  "No, I've just heard from my friend. Something's cropped up, and he isn't coming, so I just wanted to tell you, so you won't be wondering where my car went."

  McBride drove home, mulling the problem in his head. He had been stupid to think that the fracking people would accept him just like that especially if they were an organization trying to destabilize the government or their dreams of self sufficiency. They would be extra cautious about strangers, reckoning that they might be welcoming a spy, which they would have been.

  By the time he was entering the front door of his apartment, he had planned a strategy that might work. Well, it was worth a try. He unpacked his case, and went out to the pub round the corner for a late lunch.

  Early the next morning McBride was in his bathroom, not for a shave. He hadn't had the razor out for a couple of days, and was sporting a trendy stubble. He set to work with a pair of scissors, cutting his hair as short as he could, and then with his electric shaver removing the remainder of his hair. He now had a modern bald head, though it was obscenely white so he nipped down the road for a tube of fake suntan. It worked a treat.

  He dressed in shabbier clothes than before, old jeans, a ragged t-shirt, and an old denim jacket he had been meaning to throw away. He went down to the car, pulled out the still-packed rucksack, together with his warm anorak. He put his mobile phone in his pocket. He didn't take his wallet, but he pushed a hundred pounds in notes into his jeans. His credit card he put in his sock so that it lay under his sole. He memorised the information Jenny had given him, and burnt the notes.

  He caught a train for the two-hour ride to the town. The job-centre was quite busy. He had the right one, because Jenny had told him which Ben had been to. But maybe the fracking man didn't need any more recruits. McBride remembered the two people the police had taken away. Perhaps they did need more troops. The interview desks in the centre were all occupied, so McBride studied the advertisements for jobs on the freestanding panels in the middle of the floor. None were advertising for protesters, he noted. He hung around for half an hour. He thought some of the clerks were eying him up, and wondering why he didn't come to an interview desk. Instead, he walked slowly out of the door, as though he had no job. And all the time in the world.

  His heart lurched as he came out on to the wide forecourt. The man with the black beard was standing watching him. Surely he couldn't have recognized him. He was hardly going to try any heavy stuff here, in the middle of a market town. Not with all the pedestrians scurrying past, and the road busy with slow-moving vehicles.

  The man approached him. "Did you get a job in there?"

  "No." That was true.

  "Do you want a job, cash payment, no tax, two hundred quid a week?"

  McBride nodded, as though he was slightly simple.

  "You know the fracking site in Malvern Road, near the Wellington Inn?"

  "Yes,"

  "Well, all you have to do is turn up there and look for an old guy with a beard and a Green Party badge. Tell him The Big Man sent you. You'll need a tent and an oil lamp, you can get them at the Millets shop see, over there," he pointed across the road. He reached into his pocket, pulled out some money, gave him a hundred pounds McBride found out when he got to the shop. "I'll see you there tomorrow. "If you don't turn up, I'll send somebody to kill you." He wasn't smiling when he said that.

  McBride bought a cheap two-person tent, the sort that incorporated a groundsheet, and had a spring wire frame, so that you could fold it small to put in rucksack. When you took it out, it sprang into shape, and there it was ready to crawl into. To stop it blowing aw
ay while you weren't in it, there were four metal tent pegs, to put into small sewn tape loops and knocked into the ground. You could use a piece of rock or your boot as a hammer. The shop assistant told McBride so; the wonders of high technology. Just like the army, only their tents had been bigger. He bought an oil lamp, a small one. He folded the tent and put it in the rucksack.

  Attached to an outside strap the oil-lamp rattled about as he tramped along the road. It was about four miles before McBride recognized the area where the drilling rig was located.

  He marched straight into the field and across to the camp. People looked up to watch him approach. They looked as if they were cooking, which suited McBride. He was peckish, not having eaten since breakfast. He picked out the grey bearded Green Party guy. He must remember to treat him like a stranger. As before, the man rose and came out to meet him.

  "The Old Man sent me, I had to tell you." Said McBride, deadpan.

  "Good I'll take you over to meet the others. Have you bought a tent?"

  McBride nodded. The old man led him to the group round the fire. A pleasant aroma was coming from the pan sitting over the flames.

  "This is Donny here. He'll show you where to pitch your tent. Sorry, what is your name?"

  "John," said McBride, who thought that he ought to use his correct first name, didn't want to ignore anybody who shouted for him.

  "Come on, I'll show you where to pitch up," said Donny, in his thick Yorkshire accent. He was a gangling spotty faced youth. He walked down the line, and indicated a space at the end.