by Heide Goody
“Seven hundred and forty million pounds,” said the tally-keeper, Nigel. Narinda nodded in grim agreement.
“That is a pretty penny, isn’t it?” said Clovenhoof.
“One last bet. One last bet!” pleaded Maldon. “Double or quits?”
Clovenhoof nodded genially and sipped his Lambrini.
“Er, Lord Ferret,” said Nigel, “I’m sorry to point out that Mr Clovenhoof’s current winnings and original pot would not cover a bet that size.”
“It’s okay, I’m good for it,” said Clovenhoof.
“He is not!” said Narinda.
Maldon hung his head. “Please, Jezza, won’t you give an Old Etonian a chance? Tell you what, eh, old chap? We’ll stake everything you’ve got against…” He sucked his breath in as though in thought. “A billion pounds?”
“Billion pounds!” squeaked Nerys.
“A billion, eh?” said Clovenhoof.
“I mean I’d have to sell a castle or two to cover it but at least I’d have a chance to regain my honour.” Maldon was doing a great impression of a broken man. “Let me make it more enticing. You can have all three of those bally arches. All three. And I’ll have that one, the one with the church.”
Narinda was waving her hands and mouthing ‘Don’t do it!’ loud enough for someone a mile away to read.
“Three arches to one?” said Clovenhoof. “Everything I own against a cool billion?” He held out his hand.
Maldon shook it solemnly and was suddenly a composed gentleman once more. He glanced at his watch.
“Everyone, keep your eyes on that arch,” he said. “Nigel? You filming this?”
Rutspud surreptitiously climbed on top of the chime-management cabinet to see if the paper with the programmer’s e-mail address had slipped down the back. He recognised, of course, that there was virtually no way to climb on large fixtures and fittings whilst remaining surreptitious and had instructed Joan to cough and engage the vicar in loud conversation every time the man was in danger of looking round.
“So,” she grunted as they worked the pulley rope hand over hand, “these bells must have been part of the church’s history for hundreds of years.”
“These ones were installed in the 1860s,” said the vicar. “This one was the biggest of them.”
“Yes. Weighs plenty,” she agreed.
Rutspud waggled his hand down the back of the unit, forcing his dextrous fingers into the gap between metal cabinet and stone wall. A disturbed spider ran over his knuckles and away. If he’d had the time, he might have snagged it and eaten it. Even a spider was an improvement on those crispied rice things. But he didn’t have the time. He jammed his hand further down and felt around.
“Weighs close to eight hundred pounds, this one,” said the vicar. “Although, judging by your accent, you’d prefer it in metric.”
“I’m an old-fashioned girl,” smiled Joan. “Pounds I understand.”
“Chimes commencing in thirty seconds,” said the machine beneath Rutspud.
“Oh, you must listen,” said the vicar. He looked up at the bell, still hanging a good twenty feet above them. “I’m sure your friend would –”
The vicar stared at Rutspud at the same moment as Rutspud realised his hand was not only jammed down the back of the cabinet but well and truly jammed.
“What are you doing?” demanded the vicar.
“Um. Joan?” He yanked his arm but his wrist was caught against something.
There was the honk of air brakes and the loud rumble of an engine outside. Joan was opening her mouth to offer some excuse but the vicar was scurrying to the door, his black cassock flapping.
“No, no, no. Too fast, too near. I put up signs!”
A shuddering crunch against the wall right behind the cabinet shook Rutspud and set his scraped hand free. Up above, stonework trembled and something somewhere went snap.
The rope flew from Joan’s hand. She yelled something very unsaintly and grabbed for it again.
The bell tumbled. The vicar screamed. Joan flew up with the rope. Rutspud tottered on the top of the cabinet. He could see that in roughly half a second, Joan was about to get clouted on the head by the bell and, in short order, would experience a brief ringing in the ears before becoming the world’s first two-dimensional saint.
Rutspud half-leapt and half-fell from his vantage point. He slapped against the rim of the bell with sufficient force to turn its downward plummet into an elliptical swing.
The descending bell missed Joan of Arc by millimetres (or lignes if the old fashioned French girl preferred). Her rising weight slowed it as it and Rutspud swung round and back...
“Oh, bollocks,” said Rutspud.
“Chimes commencing in five –”
Rutspud was aware of the phrase ‘between a rock and a hard place’. Between a bell and a stone wall didn’t have the same poetry to it but that was where the chime-management cabinet found itself. Briefly.
On the Ferret estate, dozens of eyes were fixed on an archway with a commanding view of the darkening gardens and the nearby village church.
“Any moment now,” said Maldon and consulted his watch again.
“Maybe they’ve all gone to bed,” said Clovenhoof nonchalantly.
“No,” said Maldon softly. “It should… The birds in the belfry. The chimes.”
He tapped his watch.
“There!” shouted Nerys, pointing.
Clovenhoof looked. A dim shape, a hunting owl perhaps, flapped above distant woodland. And it was most definitely in one of Clovenhoof’s arches.
“Did you see that?” said Nerys.
“I’m not sure any of us saw anything,” said Maldon unconvincingly. “It’s getting dark after all.”
“Perhaps Nigel filmed it,” suggested Clovenhoof.
“I did,” said Nerys.
“Jeremy won?” said Nerys.
“Um,” said Lord Maldon Ferret.
He looked round at his guests. Many were as stunned as him. He saw shock on a lot of faces but there was also plenty of amusement and contempt. People might hate winners, but they also hate total losers.
Maldon’s mouth worked silently, as if searching for a way to back out of the bet, to claim that it had all been in jest. But Clovenhoof had met (and tortured) a lot of rich people and knew that it wasn’t enough for them to have lots of money, they had to pretend that they didn’t care they had lots of money. To plead for his money just wasn’t in Maldon’s nature.
“I take cash or cheque,” said Clovenhoof. “Cash preferably. I like to roll in it and shove it down my pants.”
Maldon’s mouth continued to work silently.
“That will be one point seven four billion pounds please,” said Narinda, “in addition to the money held in your building society.”
“Fuck me,” whispered Nerys, astounded and delighted. She nudged Okra in the ribs. “Seriously. I’m feeling generous.”
“But…” managed Maldon.
“Nigel,” said Narinda, “fetch his lordship’s chequebook.”
“Unless he’d rather see a soon-to-be viral YouTube video of him welching on a bet,” said Nerys.
Clovenhoof gave the shell-shocked lord a consolatory pat on the shoulder. “Never mind, eh, Maldo-mate. Tell you what, I took a shine to those cannons of yours up on the terrace. I’ll buy them off you. Million a pop. They’d look great on my yacht. And maybe we can find you a rugby team somewhere willing to pay for some public-school specials, earn you a little extra cash.”
Clovenhoof turned, arms outspread to the guests and what he reckoned would suddenly turn out to be his new best buddies.
“Scrum fumbles are on Maldon. Drinks are on me. To the bar everyone!”
To whoops and cheers, he led the way back up to the house.
“Okra would really like to have a chat with you as soon as possible about some lucrative business opportunities,” said Nerys, steering her new boyfriend along with them.
“Have his people call my people
,” he said, draping an arm over Nerys’s and Narinda’s shoulders. “I think it’s going to be a busy week.”
“I can’t believe that just happened,” said Nerys.
“You are a reckless man,” said Narinda sternly.
“King of gamblers,” he grinned.
Joan found Rutspud next to but fortunately not amongst the wreckage of the cabinet of electronics.
“Are you unhurt?” she asked, helping him to his feet.
Rutspud corrected an arm that was bending the wrong way and noisily cricked his spine.
“There was that remark about us both being good Christians,” he said, “but I’ll get over it.”
Both limping slightly, they headed outside.
A lorry with a long trailer filled the road outside the church, the back end of the trailer stuck in a hedge on the bend, the top front edge crumpled against the church wall.
The driver struggled to get out of his cab in the narrow lane. He looked up at the damage the trailer and wall had made of each other and, putting his hand to his head, winced.
“Are you hurt?” said the vicar.
“No,” said the driver despondently, “but I think I soon might be. Mr Clovenhoof was really insistent about getting these self-driving cars delivered.”
Joan looked at the half dozen sleek vehicles on the split level trailer.
“Self-driving?”
“Top of the line.”
“And is your lorry self-driving?” said the vicar, his withering tone unmistakeable.
“No,” said the driver. “Sorry, father.”
As the vicar began to educate the lorry driver on both the difference between Anglican and Catholic priests and on the existence of certain signs he had put up along the lane, Rutspud put a piece of paper in Joan’s hand.
She unfurled it. It was a long printed ticket, torn at both ends and apparently for something called National Express West Midlands.
“What is it?”
“Turn it over,” said Rutspud.
She did. “The programmer’s e-mail address. Can we use this to find him?”
“We can use this to contact him,” said Rutspud. “All we need is a computer. Come on.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
It was the morning after the night before, but no one had slept.
Clovenhoof, Ben, Nerys and Narinda were all in the games room, but The Game was ignored as they all tried to absorb how rich Clovenhoof actually was. Clovenhoof lounged dreamily on his favourite chair. Narinda sat primly at the table. Ben was wedged in a corner as though the prospect of fabulous wealth was the most terrifying thing in the world.
Nerys leaned against the filing cabinet filled with The Game’s rules.
“Sit down,” Ben said to her, nervously. “You’re making the place look… cluttered.”
“I’m too buzzed to sit,” she said.
“Ah, I thought you might be too sore,” said Clovenhoof. “You and your catch were noisy in your celebrations last night.”
“Okra was very energetic,” she commented, shamelessly. “He’s sleeping it off upstairs. And you are a dirty old man.”
“Unh-uh,” said Clovenhoof, wagging a finger. “I’m filthy rich now, so I’m a ‘character’ or a ‘card’ if you will.”
Narinda ended the call on her phone and put it meaningfully on the table.
“It’s done,” she said.
“Done.”
“The money has been transferred. Maldon honoured the bet.”
“Good God!” breathed Ben, stunned.
“That’s an opinion,” said Clovenhoof. “So, I’ve got questions.”
“Of course,” said Narinda.
“First up, if I stacked all my money in tenners, would I need a fork lift truck to move it around?” he asked Narinda.
“That’s the question you really wanted to ask?” said Nerys.
Narinda tapped on her phone. “You would need a fork lift truck and several days. Seriously, you would need more than fifty trucks to move it around.”
“What about gold bars? Could I build a house?”
Narinda spent a little longer tapping. “Around six thousand bricks in a house. Gold bars are smaller than house bricks, so I’m going to say you’ll need fifteen thousand, although I have no idea how you’d construct this house. Let’s check the current price of gold – yup, you could afford to build a house from gold bars.”
“Maybe I should do that?” mused Clovenhoof.
“It would be a very insecure way to hold funds,” said Narinda.
“I suppose it would be handy for paying the window cleaner,” said Ben. “You could just carve a chunk off the wall if you were short of cash.”
“Window cleaner?” said Clovenhoof, who was always suspicious of any kind of cleaning. “Surely you mean wall polisher? I want to be able to see my reflection in my golden wall as I rub myself along its length.”
Narinda pulled a face. “The first thing that we need to do is establish your tax position.”
“Oh, Narinda,” said Clovenhoof shaking his head. “That is absolutely not the first thing we need to do. I’m not even sure it makes the top hundred.” He pulled out a ragged envelope he’d been scribbling on. “Nope. It doesn’t.”
Nerys walked over and took the list from Clovenhoof. He noticed that she was still in catwalk mode, placing her feet carefully in line and sashaying her hips for the invisible audience. She scanned down the list. “Uh-huh. Yep. On it. Oh, right. This one here, about being famous? You’re having a press conference in five minutes.”
“I have?”
“You asked. I made phone calls. It’s a great news narrative.”
“My rags to riches tale, of course it is.”
“I think they’re more interested in Maldon Ferret’s riches to, well, much smaller riches tale. The British press do like to kick the rich and powerful when they’re down.”
Narinda sighed. “I would strongly suggest that you take a while to properly evaluate your situation. The tax office can help you to ensure that your obligations are clarified.”
“But you said that bets aren’t taxable,” said Clovenhoof.
“That is correct, but we will need to provide assurances that this was not staged in order to disguise a gift, especially given the sums of money we’re talking about. And I should remind you that your original tax bill is still outstanding.”
“Narinda, Narinda, you worry too much,” said Clovenhoof, pulling a wad of cash from inside his smoking jacket. “Give them this to tide them over and we can sort it all out later. In the meantime, I have a press conference to give. My audience awaits.”
Clovenhoof led the way out of the ground floor games room and opened the front door to find a crowd of people facing him. They stood in the small front garden and spilled onto the pavement. One or two of them seemed to be standing on top of the hedge, which was a good trick, but then he realised that they had step ladders and stood on top to take photographs. Out of the corner of his eye, Clovenhoof could see Nerys shifting position so she could pout at the camera. He struck a pose in his smoking jacket, while journalists crowded forward and stuck microphones in his face.
“Is it true that you won millions in a bet?”
“How rich are you?”
“Do all of these Eddy-Cabs belong to you?”
Clovenhoof held his hands in the air and beamed at them all. “It’s true that I am unbelievably rich and that you should now all be fascinated by the details of my life. Luckily for you, I’ve been keeping careful records of my bowel movements for some time now. Photos too! My assistant can send those out in a press pack later today.”
Nerys elbowed forwards. “As you’ve just heard, Mr Clovenhoof is a hilarious rogue with a fascinating life story. We’ll be taking bids for the serialisation rights in a short while. In the meantime, he will take a few questions. You, there.”
“You’ve made several fortunes recently, Mr Clovenhoof. Have you got any financial tips for our readers?” aske
d a woman wearing a hot pink suit.
Clovenhoof ignored Narinda gently shaking her head beside him. “Money. Hm, let me tell you about money. Money is like water,” declared Clovenhoof. “Dirty, smelly, delicious water. It flows from one place to another and if you try to hold it in your hands it will run through your fingers. The best thing that you can hope for is to fall into a lake and then go splashing around while you can. My tips for you are: make sure you get good and wet; never use an umbrella; and swallow, don’t spit.”
The journalists nodded and scribbled, and if they were confused by his nonsensical declarations they pretended not to be.
“Next question?” shouted Nerys. “You in the tweed.”
“Ah, I am actually a representative of the Sutton Railway Building Society. I was hoping, Mr Clovenhoof, that you’d be able to provide assurances that you’ll be leaving your funds in our organisation?”
Clovenhoof’s eyes widened. “Why on earth would I do that?” he asked.
“Because it is a long-standing cornerstone of Sutton Coldfield. Part of its heritage, you might say,” said the man in the tweed.
“What’s that got to do with me leaving funds in there?” asked Clovenhoof.
“Because you now control all of the funds available to our venerable institution. Jobs and livelihoods depend upon your sense of responsibility towards it.”
Clovenhoof nodded. “Yes, I’ve met Penny. If you ask me, she could do with a change of scenery, so I’ll be in touch about an alternative position for her.”
The man blanched. “So you’ll be withdrawing your funds?” he asked.
“Didn’t you just hear my eloquent speech about money being like water? I have big plans for my money, and none of them involve leaving it where it is.”
“I have a question,” said a woman with a strident voice. “Your PrayPal has been responsible for a significant decline in church attendance.”
“Has it?”
“It has. What are you going to do about it?”
Clovenhoof gave her a smile. “Do you want me to answer that question truthfully? Tell you what, why don’t you explain why that bothers you?”
