Jace stood and walked out into the sunlight, throwing a happy wave over his shoulder as he did so.
Moretti looked around him and then jingled the set of keys he held in his hand. He drew in a deep, satisfied breath.
‘And to think, people say the Brits aren’t friendly.’
CHAPTER 5
It was, in many ways, the most British response imaginable to a situation. Their boss had shot himself in the foot in an extremely non-metaphorical way. There had been quite a lot of blood. Enough for Ox to have promptly fainted when he ran into the room. Grace had come in and taken control of the situation – calling an ambulance, raising the foot and wrapping it in most of the contents of the first aid kit. Banecroft had spent the entire time screaming and hollering while, remarkably, managing not to swear or take the Lord’s name in vain.
Hannah had stood to the side, too dazed to feel she could be of any use to anyone. This was only her second ever job interview, but she strongly suspected that they didn’t normally end in this much gunplay and bloodshed. Through it all, a little voice in the back of her mind kept saying, ‘Ohhh, you got a job, though. That’s pretty good, isn’t it?’ It was. A second voice kept trying to butt in with, ‘Yeah, but look where it is. I mean, you’re working for an appalling human being who screams abuse at everyone and just shot himself in the foot.’ To counter this, the first voice began singing ‘Things Can Only Get Better’ by D:Ream.
The ambulance crew had examined Banecroft and determined that most of the damage was ‘superficial’. The blunderbuss had been loaded with sand and what could best be termed detritus. It was less a gunshot and more a directed explosion of random crap. Still, when the police had turned up a couple of minutes after the ambulance, they’d quickly decided that they should impound the weapon.
Banecroft had been less than pleased about the situation. He had waited until the ambulance crew had moved him on to the stretcher, down the stairs and outside into the brisk March air before giving the police both barrels of his impressive swearing capabilities. His agreement with Grace clearly only covered profanities uttered inside the building. The police looked as if they were considering charging him, but that would’ve meant spending more time in his company, and from their slumped shoulders and glassy-eyed stares, Hannah guessed they were near the end of a long shift.
Hannah, Stella, Ox and Reggie watched as the ambulance pulled away. Grace had elected to go with Banecroft to the hospital, reasoning that the paramedics, who weren’t paid anywhere near enough to put up with such a patient, might otherwise find themselves tempted to open the vehicle’s rear doors at the first steep hill they reached and let gravity take its course. Banecroft had the ability to make a first impression that ranked just below that of a landmine.
Simon, despite Ox trying to talk him out of it, hopped on his bike and followed the ambulance, keen to ‘report the story’.
‘So,’ the now-recovered Ox said. ‘Pub?’
The Admiral’s Arms had three things going for it: location, location, location. It was close by.
The building beside it looked a lot nicer and it was in the process of being knocked down. Conversation was limited as the group of four walked past the demolition site – the hypnotic spectacle of a wrecking ball ploughing into a wall took up all of their attention. Lots of men in hard hats were standing around, each no doubt secretly jealous that they weren’t the guy in the cab of the crane, swinging the ball.
Once inside the pub, Hannah realized that beneath its gruff exterior, the Admiral’s Arms’ interior was even gruffer. It wasn’t a 1970s-themed pub; it was a pub that had been built in the 1970s and had remained exactly the same, only somehow it had also grown worse. The carpets were threadbare, the wallpaper was peeling, and the leather of the booths was the texture of Keith Richards’ face.
‘Afternoon, Dennis,’ said Ox cheerfully as they entered. The man behind the bar looked up briefly from his newspaper and mumbled something unintelligible. He was in his sixties, and had no hair on his head but a remarkable amount coming out of every other orifice.
The group moved to occupy a booth near the door. As Hannah sat down, she noticed a sign on the wall: ‘Due to ridiculous health and safety regulations, this establishment will no longer be serving food. Tough!’
‘Are we sure Mr Banecroft will be OK?’ she asked.
‘Honestly, dear,’ said Reggie, ‘do not give it a moment’s thought. He will be absolutely fine.’
‘Yeah,’ agreed Ox. ‘After the inevitable nuclear holocaust, the only things left will be cockroaches and Vincent Banecroft. Personally, I feel sorry for the cockroaches.’
Stella – who, upon taking her seat, had instantly pulled out a book from her satchel – didn’t look up. ‘Cockroaches can hold their breath underwater for, like, forty minutes and can run up to three miles in an hour. Innit.’
Hannah looked at her. ‘Wow. Is that right?’
‘Yep,’ she said, turning a page. ‘For reals.’
Now that she wasn’t freaking out about an impending job interview, Hannah noticed that Stella’s attempts to be street were just that: attempts. Hannah was no expert, but it all sounded a tad forced.
‘Our girl here is a fount of trivia,’ said Ox. ‘She’s the reason Dennis got rid of the quiz machine.’
‘Yeah,’ said Stella, ‘and it was the only thing in this dive that was any fun.’
‘Shush,’ said Reggie. ‘You know how sensitive Dennis gets. This place is his pride and joy.’
All four of them looked around the room.
‘Well,’ said Reggie, ‘that may be overstating the case slightly. Would you believe that the toilet facilities are kept in pristine condition?’
‘Really?’ asked Hannah.
Reggie gave her a tight smile. ‘Sadly no, but needs must.’
And with that, he headed off in the direction of the gents. Hannah watched him go.
‘Are you sure this is a good idea?’
‘What?’ asked Ox.
‘Bringing a suicidal man to the pub?’
Ox looked genuinely shocked. ‘Suicidal? Who’s suicidal?’
Hannah looked pointedly at the door of the gents’ toilet.
Ox waved a hand dismissively. ‘Reggie? Don’t be daft. He’s not suicidal.’
‘But he threatened to jump off a building!’
‘A pretty small building,’ interjected Stella.
‘Yeah,’ agreed Ox. ‘And he’s been doing the same thing every Monday morning for months now. Like clockwork.’
‘But …’ started Hannah, but she couldn’t think what else to ask.
‘Look,’ said Ox. ‘Every Monday we’ve got the editorial meeting with Banecroft and, well, you’ve met him.’
Hannah nodded.
‘Some people get themselves psyched up for something like that by, I dunno, mainlining coffee or going for a jog or summat. Reggie does it by having one of them historic fits.’
‘What?’
‘He means histrionic,’ said Stella, who now held her book in one hand and her phone in the other.
‘That’s what I said. Reggie is a very calm bloke most of the time.’
‘Really?’
Both Ox and Stella nodded.
‘Although,’ continued Stella, ‘he did lose it with one of them other new Tinas when they had a discussion about the Oxford comma.’
‘Yeah,’ agreed Ox. ‘Apart from that.’
‘Right,’ said Hannah.
They lapsed into silence as Ox checked his phone and Stella read her book. Hannah used the time to take a proper look at the Admiral’s Arms’ other patrons. An old man sat at the bar, staring at his half-drunk pint as if he were expecting it to give him bad news any minute. At his feet sat an incongruously happy-looking dog, panting away cheerily. In the corner, a couple of women sat knitting. Oddly, they were knitting the same garment from either end. It seemed to have more sleeves than could possibly be needed. The final customer was a tall man in his twenties who wor
e a peaked cap and had a nervous, jerky energy to him. It meant that even as he sat on a stool at the bar, texting, he was neither sitting down nor standing up, but in a permanent state of flux between the two.
Reggie returned from the gents, careful to dust down his seat before taking his place at the table.
‘Right,’ said Ox. ‘Time for a round, I think.’
He looked at Hannah expectantly.
She smiled. ‘I’ll have a white wine, please.’
‘Guess again,’ said Ox.
Reggie sighed. ‘What Ox is trying to say, in his own inimitably abrupt style, is that it is traditional on these occasions for “the new Tina” to get the first round in.’
The rest of the table nodded.
‘Oh. Right. Of course. Sorry.’
‘I’ll have a pint of mild, please,’ said Ox.
‘A gin and tonic,’ said Reggie.
‘Same,’ said Stella.
‘She’ll have a Coke,’ said Reggie.
Stella lifted her gaze and, from between strands of green hair, shot Reggie the dirtiest of looks.
‘Come now, Stella, dear. What would Grace say?’
‘She’s not my mum.’
‘She’s everybody’s mum,’ said Ox.
Stella tutted and went back to her book. ‘Fine. Whatever. Coke.’
‘Ooh,’ said Ox, ‘can we get some nuts too? I’m starving – since we didn’t get a lunch because of you-know-who doing you-know-what.’
Hannah went to the bar and ordered the drinks and nuts. From the look Dennis the barman gave her, it appeared that her doing so had entirely ruined his day. She tried to engage him in conversation, but he regarded her with undisguised suspicion. When he’d finished pouring the drinks, Hannah’s polite request for a tray was met with, ‘We used to have one but somebody borrowed it for Princess Diana’s wedding and never brought it back.’
As she stood at the bar, Hannah had her first moment alone with her thoughts since she had entered the doors of The Stranger Times a couple of hours ago. She had a job! She had co-workers! Admittedly, they were a tad eccentric, but it was a refreshing change from the stultifying life she’d known previously, where anything that didn’t fit into rigorous parameters was mocked and derided, although never openly. That old crowd had too much class to practise honesty. If you wanted to hear what they really thought of you, you’d need to somehow be in the room you’d just walked out of. It left you in a permanent state of unease, thinking that at any given time people were talking about you.
After her break-up with Karl, that unease disappeared. Hannah was now certain they were talking about her. This job was a fresh start. Reggie seemed nice. The accent was luvvie in the extreme, but he appeared to be a gentle soul. Ox was quite abrupt, but he was lively. She bet he’d be good fun when she got to know him. Stella was clearly very smart. Hannah hoped she could get on her good side – assuming she had one. Simon had seemed like an enthusiastic, if odd, kid. After the life she had led to this point, being around unvarnished, unapologetic enthusiasm for anything was a refreshing change. Grace, too, had seemed nice. Yes, she decided, while Banecroft was an ‘issue’, overall, things were definitely looking up.
Hannah ferried the drinks to the booth in two trips and then retook her seat.
‘So,’ said Reggie, ‘how is our new assistant editor settling in?’
‘Excuse me?’
Reggie sipped at his gin. ‘Oh, my dear, did you not know? You’re our assistant editor.’
‘I am? That was never mentioned in the … Gosh!’
‘Wow,’ said Stella, not looking up from her book. ‘The new Tina literally just said “gosh”. She’ll be asking for lashings of ginger beer next.’
Hannah elected to ignore her. ‘So, I … What does the job entail exactly?’
‘Well,’ said Reggie. ‘Quite a lot really. You’re in charge of subediting the paper, so cutting things down as needed, corrections, that sort of stuff. And you’re also the conduit between the editor and the journalistic staff.’ Reggie wafted his hand in front of himself and Ox.
‘Are you all of the writers?’
‘Oh no,’ said Ox. ‘We’re just the only two full-timers. We’ve got a load of others who send stuff in. There’s a bloke in Brazil who sends us stories from South America …’
Reggie nodded. ‘Lots of rather bizarre occurrences happen down there. Just last week they had a rain of frogs in Peru, a mummy attacked someone out hiking in Venezuela, and a woman became pregnant in Argentina when she got caught in a tornado and accidentally fell on to a gentleman’s … Well, y’know.’
‘Right,’ said Hannah, wondering how long it had taken for someone to come up with that excuse.
‘Yes,’ continued Reggie. ‘I am The Stranger Times’s paranormal consultant and Ox here is our ufologist and general paranoid.’
‘It’s not paranoia if people are really out to get you.’
‘Yes, well—’
‘Sorry,’ interrupted Hannah, a new urgency in her voice. ‘I’m the assistant editor? I’m, like, the second in command?’
Reggie nodded. ‘That is one way of looking at it.’
‘Technically,’ conceded Ox. ‘In reality, you’re the thing standing between us and Banecroft. If it helps, think of yourself as, like, one of them rodeo clowns.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Reggie. ‘I’m afraid so. The best explanation for Vincent Banecroft is that he is Ireland’s gift to the English to thank us for all the nice things we’ve done to them over the years.’
‘I mean,’ said Hannah, ‘since our editor is currently out of commission, should we all be in the pub? Shouldn’t we be, I don’t know, working on something or …’
‘Relax,’ said Ox, ‘there’s no need to panic.’
‘OK, but—’
Hannah stopped talking as Ox, in one fluid motion, slid under the table.
‘Ehm, Ox, what are you doing?’
‘Nothing. Everything is absolutely fine.’
For a man in the duck-and-cover position he sounded remarkably cheerful.
‘Oh, good God,’ said Reggie.
Hannah followed his gaze across the room. Two men had just walked in. One was tall and shaven-headed, the other short with long hair and a beard.
Reggie spoke in an urgent whisper while pointedly not looking under the table. ‘Would it be safe to assume that you borrowed money from the Fenton brothers?’
‘No, actually. Smart-arse. I placed a bet with them.’
‘I’m going to guess that you did not win.’
‘Now is not the time, Reggie. I need a distraction. Stella, be a good girl and go outside and set something on fire.’
‘Do no such thing,’ snapped Reggie before Stella could reply.
‘Fine,’ said Ox. ‘Everyone just carry on like I’m not here.’
‘That’s easy for you to say,’ said Hannah. ‘You’re not wearing a skirt.’
‘He’s gay,’ said Stella, without looking up.
‘Oh,’ said Hannah. ‘Well … that’s all right, then.’
‘Thank you for your approval of my life choices,’ came the voice from under the table. ‘What are they doing?’
‘Well,’ said Reggie. ‘They’re at the far end of the bar, talking to Dennis. Oh, the big one just clocked us. He’s pointing us out to the little one.’
‘Oh no, oh no, oh no.’
Stella reached into her satchel, which was festooned with stickers, and took out a lunch box containing half of a home-made ham sandwich.
‘You owe me big time for this,’ she said, to nobody in particular.
She pulled out a sliver of ham and, with a surreptitious underarm toss, sent it flying across the room towards the main doors. Nobody noticed – or at least no person noticed. One canine certainly did. The dog, which had been sitting so obediently at its owner’s feet, flew to the doors in pursuit of a treat, its lead still wrapped around the leg of the tall stool. The owner fell forward, throwing a large part of his pint into hi
s own face.
The scene drew the attention of everyone in the room.
‘Go,’ hissed Stella.
Hannah tried to keep a demure expression on her face as a grown man quickly crawled under her legs and out towards the back door. While the dog owner gave his wayward pooch a severe talking-to, the door opened and Ox made his escape.
‘Right,’ said Reggie. ‘Well, that was all very dignified.’
Hannah glanced at the two men at the bar. ‘Ehm, I don’t know if anyone else has noticed, but those two guys are looking over here again, and they don’t seem happy.’
‘Yes. We should probably depart before it dawns on them that they might have been bamboozled.’
Hannah, Reggie and Stella got to their feet. Maintaining a determined focus in the opposite direction to the Fenton brothers, they made for the back door. If they’d looked in the direction of the two men, however, they would have noticed one of them nudging the other before they both headed out the main doors.
‘Afternoon,’ said the tall one.
The two Fenton brothers were taking up the whole pavement.
‘Hello,’ said Hannah with a nod as she tried to move past them.
The short one moved to block her. ‘We’re looking for your friend.’
‘I don’t know who you mean.’
‘Yeah, but he does.’ The big one shoved a finger in Reggie’s face. ‘Where’s the little Chinky fella?’
‘Well, now,’ said Reggie, ‘that is highly inappropriate language to describe Ox’s proud Chinese ancestry.’
‘Is that right?’ The big one replaced his finger with his whole face, now inches from Reggie’s. ‘Seeing as the little Chinky fucker owes us three grand, I’ll call him what I like.’
‘OK, look,’ said Hannah, ‘this is nothing to do with us.’
‘Yeah?’ said the shorter one. ‘Well, I’m afraid we’re making it your problem. If Ox wants to play hide-and-seek, then we’ve got to send him a message. Ain’t we?’
‘OK,’ said Hannah. ‘What is the message?’
Stella tutted from behind her. ‘I don’t think it’s a message message, New Tina.’
Hannah’s face reddened briefly, but the colour drained quickly when she realized embarrassment was the least of her problems. ‘All right, look—’
The Stranger Times Page 5
