by Heide Goody
Jimmy mumbled, uncomprehending and incomprehensible.
“A wasp,” said Cesar. He became quite animated. “They do say a lot of unexplained accidents are caused by insects flying into the car and distracting the driver.” He narrowed his eyes as he stared at Jimmy’s face. “Did you swallow it? Them?”
“Uaad?”
“There’s a lot. Were you transporting wasps? Wasp hives? Do wasps have hives?”
Jimmy didn’t have time for this. He probably only had moments before Wayne killed himself and Sam ran away to blab to the first person she found. He groaned in annoyance.
“Sir. Sir! I think you might be going into anaphylactic shock,” said Cesar. He put a hand on Jimmy’s chest to reassure him. “I’m going to sit you down and call for an ambulance.”
Jimmy shook his head violently, regretting it instantly. He felt the needles in his throat worm their way in more deeply.
“It’s okay,” said Cesar, a big idiotic smile on his face. “It’s all part of the service.”
Jimmy might have tried to politely indicate he was unable to speak due to cactus needle mouthwash. He might have usefully suggested he could write down some key facts to bring Cesar up to speed. But lacking the time or the will, what he did instead, because he’d taken enough shit for one day, was headbutt Cesar violently. Cesar staggered back, dazed. Jimmy grabbed him again, pulled him into a fresh headbutt that hurt Jimmy like buggering hell but knocked the cop unconscious. He dragged Cesar’s unconscious body into the back of the van and slammed the door. He walked back to the police car, turned off the ignition, closed the door and tossed the keys into a field.
When he climbed into the van, he was pleased to recognise Cold Jimmy was back at the wheel.
* * *
Sam walked carefully, placing her feet with delicate slowness. Eventually, she came to an established vehicle track and jogged, to keep warm as much as anything else. Her wet, caked clothes were heavy, and though it was many weeks until winter she imagined it was possible to die of exposure out here when night fell.
A wave of relief washed through her when the track passed through a barbed wire fence marked with the RAF warning signs. She was out of that particular danger and heading in the right direction. Not long afterwards, the track met a long, low hedgerow and the main road.
She hung back, behind the hedge. It would be a terrible thing if the next car to come along was Jimmy or Jacinda. They were sufficiently out in the sticks here, and it was entirely possible. She heard a car’s approach and she peeked carefully. For some unfathomable reason, it looked like Delia’s car. Sam stepped out. It was Delia.
The car wobbled on the road and braked beside her.
Sam actually squealed with delight as Delia pulled open the door. Even more bizarrely, her father was in the passenger seat.
“What the hell?” said Delia.
“I am so glad to see you two,” said Sam. “How…?”
“Following a drone.”
“I summoned it. I was—”
Sam didn’t know where that sentence was going and didn’t get to end it because her dad got out of the car and flung his arms around her, pulling her into a giant hug.
“I’m pretty muddy, dad,” she said. She’d covered him with the vile grey sludge that coated her front.
“Not to worry, sweetheart. It’s only mud.”
“That man we spoke to on the phone seemed a bit suspicious,” said Delia as Marvin took off his coat to put round Sam.
Sam thought. “That’d be Jimmy MacIntyre.”
“Who?”
“The hunky builder.”
“Who’s hunky?” said Marvin.
“He kidnapped me and brought me out here.”
Sam got into the back of Delia’s car. She’d been concerned about marking the upholstery, but she realised the back seat was covered in several layers of newspapers and bags for life, so there was no chance she’d get it dirty.
“I think someone needs to explain what’s going on,” said Marvin.
“It all started with the meals on wheels,” said Sam. “And we need to get back to Skegness, pronto.”
Marvin was both deeply perplexed and concerned. “Is this what you do for a living, Sam?”
* * *
Jimmy ran into the office shed at the back of the Frost house. The chair where Sam had been tied was still there. Bungee cords and a cut cable tie lay on the floor. The spread of the debris suggested action and hurry. No sign of Sam or Wayne. Oddly, neither of them had thought to take the shotgun from the desk.
Jimmy grabbed it, ignoring the pain in his stiffening hands. He pocketed a handful of shells, loaded two into the breach, snapped it shut and went outside.
In the near dark, he could make out the new marks on the lawn and the damage to the far fence. The lawnmower? One of them had taken it. Hardly a fast getaway vehicle, but a very Wayne thing to do.
So, they’d gone out towards the sea. Sam, if she’d had any sense, would have looped swiftly back to the main road. That’s where Wayne was, either dead, dying, or still stuck in a piece of military hardware. Well, fuck him. Jimmy wasn’t going to waste any time going to find him, dead or alive.
No, what Jimmy needed to do was find Sam before she got back to civilisation. Failing that he needed two things: a load of ready money and the means to get miles away from here before looking for medical attention. He would confront Jacinda and get her to give him a payoff. Whatever, all roads led to Skegness.
69
Sam could feel her skin tightening underneath the drying mud, but she’d assembled all of the pieces and been able to explain them to her father and Delia.
“So, this all started because the access road to their housing estate wasn’t wide enough?” Delia said. “That’s cold.”
“Despicable,” said Marvin.
“It’s certainly no reason to kill an innocent old woman.”
“I don’t think they meant to kill her,” said Sam. “But as they got deeper in, they had to kill the vet, and they were definitely going to kill me.”
“We need the police to take it from here,” said Marvin. “We’re taking you home.”
“Er, awards ceremony,” said Sam.
“I know I’m dressed up and everything,” said Delia, “but I don’t think I was going to win anyway.”
“I meant Jacinda Frost is there.”
Marvin had his phone out. “I’m calling the police now. Let them deal with it. Besides, you’re in no state to go to a glitzy ceremony like that. You know I love you like a daughter, but you do smell a bit funny.”
“There’s some spare clothes in the back that you can use,” said Delia.
Sam looked over the gap where the parcel shelf should be and saw a familiar-looking box with sequinned costumes spilling out of the top. Her initial enthusiasm was wiped away in an instant. “Oh. Linda’s stuff. I see.”
“There might be something in there that you could use,” said Marvin. The tone of his voice suggested it would be a minor miracle if she found anything suitable. “Ah, police please,” he said into the phone.
Sam unbuckled her seatbelt so she could lean over and retrieve the box. Once it was on the back seat she could more easily sort the contents. She made one pile for bodysuits and one for other accessories. It was all rather … skimpy.
“It would be nice to warm up a bit,” said Sam.
“Think layers,” said Delia.
“Layers,” said Sam. “Like feather boas in six different colours, you mean?” She held them up like streamers.
“Yeah! It works for birds, doesn’t it?”
Sam had to hand it to Delia. She’d taken on the role of cheerful optimist and was determined to see it through. Whether polyester feather substitute had any insulating properties was hardly worth debating in the face of Delia’s insane cheeriness.
Marvin, busy chatting to someone, waved away a wafted boa.
“I’ve got some wet wipes you can use to clean the worst of the mud,
” said Delia, handing the packet across the seatback.
Sam opened the packet to find it had suffered the fate of all wet wipes kept in cars. More or less dehydrated, all that remained was a packet of stiffened tissues, but Sam used them to scrape off as much mud as she could. She littered the footwell of Delia’s car with discarded wipes as Delia drove on towards town.
Marvin ended the call. “Right, the police are informed. Not sure they fully understood everything I told them.”
“But they’re going to arrest Jacinda?”
“There are police at Carnage Hall already. Well – a couple of those pretend police bods.”
“PCSOs. They don’t like it if you call them pretend police officers.”
“Anyway, them.”
“And I know Cesar is going to be in attendance.”
“And,” said Marvin with a showman’s emphasis, “I told them about Jimmy MacIntyre, and I definitely heard one of them say he’d been pulled over by the police less than an hour ago. So, problem solved.”
“Arrested? Wow. And what’s to happen to us?”
“They’re going to get the boys in CID to speak to you. They’ve got this number, so all’s good.”
All’s good. Sam laughed at that.
“You okay, hun?” said Delia.
“Never better,” said Sam, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. So she laughed again.
After Sam had done as much as she could to remove mud with the rubbish wipes, she turned back to the clothes. She wriggled out of her current top and into a sequined body. There was no way she could fasten the gusset at the bottom, both because of the confines of the car and the fact Linda had been a much slimmer woman. Sorting through the box had yielded little that might serve as a decent bottom half of an outfit.
“There are no bottoms here,” she said, partly as a way of complaining to the world at large, but also hoping that the world at large might have some suggestions.
“There’s that one with the feathers,” said Delia, without looking.
“Er, no. Not that.” Sam said. “There are some things that make nakedness look like an appealing option.”
“It will be fine,” said Delia. “Once it’s on you won’t even notice them. They will be behind you. So to speak.”
Sam stared at Delia’s eyes in the rear view mirror, looking for tell-tale signs of mockery, but Delia’s face was deadpan.
With a heavy sigh, Sam pulled the feathered bum-dressing from the box. She’d often looked at this garment and wondered what alignment between popular culture and crazed designer had spawned the monstrosity. As its foundation it had a pair of sequinned shorts with a tiny skater skirt. The back of the garment was the problem. The styling borrowed something from the bustles of Victorian fashion, originally designed to extend the bottom of a lady, so her skirt would hang elegantly backwards. This particular structure, while a similar shape, served only to support a colossal fleur-de-lys that extended above and beyond the shoulders when worn. It emulated the worst excesses of a bunny-girl outfit, without the discreet cheekiness of a bunny tail. Like peacock feathers springing from a giant, artificially-enhanced butt, and Sam was not impressed. She sat back in the seat, the feathers pressing against her back. She draped herself with the feather boas, but she was still cold. There were no capes in the box, but there was a large velvet cloth which, in Marvin’s act, had been used to drape over various boxes, tables and (presumably) Linda as the occasion demanded. Sam wrapped it around her shoulders, aware she probably looked like a giant bat with its wings folded, as the feathers stretched out beneath it.
“I look ridiculous,” she announced.
Delia glanced back and gave a nod of approval. “You look ... quirky.”
“Oh, crap. That’s not good.”
“It’s wonderful.” They were approaching Carnage Hall along the promenade lit by seaside illuminations and gaudy shop fronts. “It looks busy round here. I’m going to drop the two of you outside and then find somewhere to park the car further down.”
“You must allow me to accompany you,” said Marvin.
“I think Sam is the one who’s most in need of moral support,” said Delia.
Sam nodded in silent acknowledgement. She climbed out of Delia’s car and took the arm Marvin offered. She could feel the heavy feathers swaying behind her. She ignored the odd feeling and tried to walk tall. They stepped into Carnage Hall and a bustling lobby. A stand declared that the Skegness and District Local Business Guild Awards were being held in the main auditorium.
“Through here,” said Sam. “We need to find Cesar, or the PCSOs.”
“The police have everything in hand,” Marvin reassured her.
The auditorium had been set out conference style, the banks of theatre seating pulled back into the walls. A bar was set up along one side, and side doors had been folded back to reveal a wide balcony, backing onto the pleasure gardens and fairground beyond. The floor was already thronging with what passed for the great and good of Skegness. Tuxes and cummerbunds and dresses more suited to a night at the opera abounded among the tinsel drapes and café tables.
“Even here I feel oddly over-dressed,” Sam muttered.
“And I under-dressed,” said Marvin, gesturing to his mud-smeared jumper. The man was still wearing his indoor slippers.
“You didn’t need to come and find me,” she said, squeezing his hand.
“You were running for your life across a minefield. I think we did.”
“You know what I mean,” she said. “Jacinda Frost is here somewhere. She’s not going to get away with this.”
“She isn’t,” he said and squeezed her hand back.
Sam felt a boiling lump of emotion in her core, restless and violent. If she took a while to interrogate it there might be nuances of fear and trauma and horror, but right now she felt it primarily as a barely controlled rage. Whatever else she had said, whether the police had arrested Jimmy or not, she was here to see justice done.
“Let’s split up and do a circuit,” she said.
“I might try to drop in on my mate, Tim.”
“What?”
“Nothing. A quick turn about the hall each, eh? You take this in case the detectives call.” He passed her his phone. “And we’ll meet back here in a few minutes. Delia should be here by then as well.”
Sam headed off, searching the crowd for a sign of Jacinda. But first she was drawn to a mirrored column by the bar, so she could see just what she looked like. She suspected she might regret it.
The velvet drape she wore did indeed look like bat wings, but not in any kind of sexy superhero way. More like an aging pantomime bat whose wings had turned saggy and dusty.
She whipped it off and draped it over her arm. It wasn’t so cold inside the building. She realised the makeup she had put on that morning had migrated down her face, after the mud-soaking and subsequent clean-up efforts. She dabbed a finger on her tongue and tried to make it look more like a style choice than an accident.
“Hey, Sam!”
She turned. It was Rich. Of course, it was Rich. Sneaking up on her while she looked like an Alice Cooper cosplay fail.
“Hi,” she said weakly.
“Fascinating outfit you’re wearing.”
“Please don’t.”
“It really suits you.”
Sam had no idea how to take that. It was either massively demeaning – this was as good as she’d ever looked – or a compliment that she was able to carry off such a bold choice. She decided not to enquire.
70
Jimmy pulled up in the car park between the fairground and Carnage Hall. He’d decided to leave the van a short walk away from the Hall in case the copper woke up and made a noise. He climbed out and pulled out the shotgun, draped in a piece of tarp. Just a builder going about his business with some supplies, he told himself. On a Friday night. With a mouth full of blood and a face like a permanent sneeze. It would have to do.
As he shut the door, he saw someone getting ou
t of a car nearby. He didn’t so much recognise the woman as the bandolier of ugly dolls around her waist. Capitalist Whores. It was Sam’s friend. Delia.
If Sam had fled, this woman might know where to find her. He acted instinctively. Cold Jimmy was nothing if not opportunistic and decisive. He strode over, shotgun levelled, seeing the alarm in her face as she clocked him.
“Oh, God. It’s you!” Her alarm shifted into a different kind of shock when she saw him clearly. “What did you do?”
Jimmy raised the shotgun and let four inches of it poke out from the tarp. “Uaaurhh,” he gargled.
“Sorry?” she said.
“Uaaurhh!” he repeated, frustrated by his limited range of sounds. He jabbed her with the gun for emphasis. The jab unnerved her. Her eyes widened. Good, he thought. Keep her in her place.
“I don’t know what you’re saying,” she said.
“Uueer unh aah.”
“You clearly want something.”
Jimmy nodded and scowled at the same time, causing a fresh bolt of pain to shoot from his inflamed face right through his body. He grunted with the pain.
“Okay,” she said and smiled.
“I annh Sthhhanh.”
She half-uttered the name ‘Sam’ before she thought not to, but it was too late to play dumb. “I don’t know where—”
He cut her off by shoving the gun under her chin. She was dicking with him and he wasn’t taking any more of this.
“Okay, Jimmy,” she said.
She was doing that thing of using his name and smiling. It was the old salesman trick, and Jimmy wasn’t falling for it. “Nnnaa!” he insisted.
“All right, all right,” she said, trembling. “You’re very certain I know where Sam is, clearly. Would you like me to get in touch with her, perhaps?” She gestured carefully at her phone. “I can call her.”
He lowered the shotgun slightly and stepped back to give him a decent firing arc if she decided to run. There were dozens of other vehicles in the car park but no one around. No one to see this scene play out.
