‘I’ll manage,’ said Bill, hoping he would.
Lucy looked to Sid for help, but he said nothing, just reached inside a pocket of the decrepit army parka he had hung on the back of his chair. This was a garment he wore most of the winter months, its camouflaged colours long since muted by time, oil, and grime into a muddy mixture of browns and other browns. Its pockets were usually filled with bailing twine, snares, rat traps, and other tools of his many and various trades, but now he brought out an object wrapped in oilcloth. It was about the size and shape of a pipe wrench.
‘This,’ he said, uncovering it, ‘is a Smith & Wesson model 36 revolver. It weighs about 20 ounces, is just over six inches long, and fires a .38 special round. It holds five shots and has an effective range of 25 yards, but between you and me, boys and girls, five yards is about right. Especially,’ he added, ‘if the bullets are fixed so they go all naughty inside.’
Lucy looked at Sid anew. He might be round on the outside, she thought, but by Christ he has a hard centre.
Sid opened the breech to show the chambers were empty, then placed the gun on the table. Delving into his parka again, he brought out a box of ammunition. ‘Twenty-Five Rounds’ it said on the top, and it didn’t rattle.
Lucy reached out for the weapon, and Sid passed it to her with a grim smile. Her fist closed around the small butt, which had been wound round with some black tape that made it larger and easier to hold. She brought the weapon up and trained it on the jar of flowers behind her. Squeezing the trigger took almost no effort, and the small hammer went back before striking the firing pin in a fraction of a second.
Sid took the weapon from her and, with a big grin, said in a low, mock American accent, ‘That’s my girl. Annie Oakley, eat yer heart out!’
Sid then gave the gun to Bill.
‘With this little darling, you only have to get close enough to hit them anywhere and… job done. The ammunition is smaller, but with a hollow point and a little bit of extra doctoring it will do nicely. And because it’s so small you can keep it in a pocket. They’ll never expect you to go armed in any case; it’s not your style, mate.’
‘Is it traceable?’ asked Bill.
Sid put his mind at rest about that; the firearm was completely untraceable, likewise the ammunition. Providing neither carried any fingerprints, there would be nothing to make the police associate the weapon with them.
Bill then went upstairs to retrieve the sawn-off shotgun. Returning, he unwrapped it from its sacking shroud and put it on the kitchen table. It made an incongruous sight, like something medieval next to the more refined examples of the arms trade already resting there.
Lucy gazed with wide eyes at this, but without a word went and fetched the venerable shotgun Bill had borrowed from Hugh and added it to the growing armoury on the kitchen table.
She sat down, saying, ‘We could start a ruddy war with this lot.’
‘No,’ said Sid, ‘but we should be able to wage a decent campaign.’ They stashed the weapons in various out-of-the-way places, then Bill said they had better get on with the chairs before the day disappeared. Sid said he would lend a hand, but it was more to see that Bill didn’t keel over than anything else. Lucy said they would probably be in need of a good supper that night, so she took her car, left Clive with the men, and went off to shop for it.
Bill had Sid move the two chairs that needed to be stained from the workshop to the stables. Sid insisted Bill wear his ‘space helmet’ and had him stand as near to the open door as he could. Rain occasionally spattered in from the incontinent clouds, and the air was cold, but that suited Bill because he didn’t want the stain to evaporate too quickly.
Sid put the repaired chair on a turntable, then he stepped back and watched a master at work. Bill had the bottle of Jimmer’s fiery spirit on one side, the Kilner jar of mixed stain in the middle, and a milk bottle containing turps close at hand. He mixed, diluted, and spread the stain along the grain of the wood, sometimes with a soft cloth and sometimes with a piece of sheepskin. Sid marvelled as the ‘new’ gradually disappeared until it was difficult to distinguish what was today from what was yesterday.
Finally, Bill moved away, then went outside and sat down.
The rain had stopped, and there was a watery sun in the pallid sky. He took off his helmet and breathed in the fresh air. Sid felt sorry for the old boy and wished he could be of more help, but he knew he couldn’t; not yet, anyway.
When Bill got his breath back, he tried to bring up the subject of money. ‘We need to sort out what I owe you, and I’m not talking your day rates here. There’s a bit coming in on these chairs, and I want you to share in it.’
‘Look,’ said Sid, ‘we always have this bloody conversation. It’s 25 quid a day plus expenses, extras extra, and mate’s rates apply, except when they don’t.’
Both men laughed. They had worked together on and off for years. Some jobs had been nice little earners, others less so, but it had all evened out.
‘You share the chair money with Lucy,’ said Sid. ‘That girl’s done a lot more for you on this job than I have.’
‘So far,’ said Bill, looking at Sid meaningfully. ‘I’ll do Skates; I know I can, and with that little gun of yours it will be a lot easier than it would have been otherwise, but I still might not manage Warren. He might be too quick for me, I don’t know.’
Sid thought for a moment and then asked, ‘Have you considered that Warren might not even be there when you deliver the chairs?’
‘Why not?’
‘Because it makes more sense for him to be here waiting for when you get back.’
Sid sat downwind of Bill and lit one of his dreadful rollups. The smoke from it rose in the gusty air and flew away like good intentions.
‘Think about it,’ he said. ‘No one – no one alive, that is – knows you’re working on these chairs. What’s to stop Warren lifting the money off you and then starting a nice little fire by way of a warm goodbye? That way no chairs, no witnesses, just another unfortunate accident.’
‘That’s true,’ said Bill. ‘It certainly seems to have worked in Eric’s case. Have there been any rumours about that? Anything more in the papers?’
‘Not that I’ve heard or seen. Which means Skates believes you are the only one in the know and that, old darling, makes you an endangered species.’
‘In more ways than one,’ said Bill. He went back in to look at the chair he had been working on.
While there was some light and he had a little energy left, Bill wanted to get started on the new chair, so Sid set it up on another turntable. Again, a drop here and a small spoonful there, the smell of the applejack mixing with the pungent odour of the stain.
The late afternoon was host to yet another drizzle from the darkening sky. The yard looked as if it were underwater, the buildings just shapes in the gloom, as they walked back into the bright, comforting warmth of the kitchen. Lucy had returned some time earlier, and now there was the smell of something savoury and delicious. Bill sat down and Lucy handed him a mug of hot, sweet tea.
‘What’s for supper?’ he asked her.
‘Bacon roly-poly with mash, cabbage, and gravy.’
Bill and Sid exchanged looks of such pure bliss that Lucy’s heart swelled.
Bill sat back in his chair with an odd feeling of contentment. Despite all that was going on in his body and his life, he had never before known the companionship he was enjoying now. After a little while he got up went into that small, almost underground room he called his cellar and emerged a few moments later carefully carrying a dusty bottle. He placed this on the table, then went to the dresser, took down a crystal decanter, and reverently transferred the contents of the bottle to it. Finally, he held the decanter up to the light. The contents glowed a deep ruby red while the facets cunningly cut into the crystal reflected light into the dark corners of the room.
‘What is it?’ asked Lucy.
‘Port,’ said Bill. ‘A very special one.’<
br />
He passed the bottle to Lucy, who wiped dust from the simple white label and then read aloud, ‘Taylor Fladgate 1928. Is that good?’
‘One of the best,’ said Bill. ‘There are other vintages that tick all the boxes, too, of course, but this little darling was a gift from a grateful client ten or more years ago.’
‘Some gift,’ said Sid.
‘Some client,’ said Bill, remembering her with pleasure. ‘And after our grub, we’ll have a council of war over the port and cheese.’ He gave Lucy a worried look. ‘We have got cheese?’
‘Of course we have cheese!’ she laughed.
Bill napped in his chair as Lucy moved quietly about the room putting the finishing touches on dinner. Sid took Clive and did a quick patrol of the meadow and around the backs of the buildings, just to be on the safe side. There was still enough light to see if anyone had disturbed the small indicators he had left in all the likely and even a few unlikely places from which a watcher could watch. A pine cone here and a small group of twigs there; all things that would not be noticed, but would be disturbed should any prying biped encounter them.
After the delicious meal they had their port, which was as good as Bill had said it would be, and then they got down to business. Sid got up and walked over the stove. He was dying for a smoke but didn’t want to set off Bill’s coughing.
‘Okay, try this for size,’ he said. ‘Skates would be unlikely to have you killed at his place even if you brought all the chairs with you because it’s easier and safer having a body move around under its own steam than it is to carry it about.’
‘Especially if they plan to give me the Eric treatment,’ said Bill. ‘Right,’ said Sid. ‘So we can be pretty sure Warren will be here waiting for you when you return. He’ll have orders to get Skates’s money off you and set fire to the workshop.’
‘So what happens when Bill turns up with only two of the chairs?’ asked Lucy.
‘Well, that will throw a bit of a spanner into the works, but Skates is no fool and he’ll be flexible. He’ll probably phone Warren and tell him to hold off until he can collect the other two chairs, or let the killing go ahead but tell him not to set fire to anything until the other chairs are retrieved. On the whole, I think that’s the most likely scenario.’
‘Should I try to shoot him before he can call Warren?’ asked Bill. ‘No, you’ll have enough to think about, and it really doesn’t make any difference. Either way, Lucy and I will be here waiting for Warren, and we can sort him out, even if he brings helpers.’
‘We can? Oh, good,’ said Lucy, trying not to look as anxious as she felt.
‘Surprise is on our side, love,’ Sid told her. ‘The last thing Warren or anybody else will expect is to meet up with us and our shotguns. And we will not be at home to Mr Merciful, oh dear no!’
As Lucy was drifting off to sleep that night, she thought about what a strange evening it had been. If anyone had looked in at the window they would have seen three moderately normal-looking people conversing around a table laden with food and drink. They might even have smiled at such a picture of domestic harmony. Yet the three of them had been planning multiple murder.
No, not murder, she decided. Self-defence. Survival. It really was the only chance they had.
Chapter 37
SATURDAY, 27 OCTOBER
There’s something about a cold, rainy Saturday morning with a mist hanging about like a tax collector in a doorway that makes people want to stay in bed. Bill was drugged up to the eyeballs and Sid was hungover. He came downstairs into a stone-cold kitchen, no one having banked up the stove the night before. He was using a sleeping bag for a cloak, holding it together with one hand while he used the other to put the kettle on and clear the ashes from the grimy firebox.
Lucy, hearing movement from below, came downstairs and into the kitchen. Her long, fair hair was a little dishevelled, and she wore a huge, ex-navy duffel coat as a dressing gown with a pair of very worn fleece-lined flying boots as slippers. When she moved, her bare legs were occasionally visible between the coat and the massive boots. Sid thought she looked like a child wearing a grown-up’s clothes: charming and vulnerable at the same time.
He got the stove lit, and the fragrant smell of wood smoke was soon drifting about the room. Lucy let Clive out and shivered as the cold air blew in. Then, having made a pot of tea, she sat at the kitchen table holding her mug in both hands and sipping the hot brew, hunched into her clothes against the chill. Sid took his mug upstairs to get dressed.
As Lucy sat alone in the kitchen, she was warmed by both the tea and her surroundings, which bore witness to how much she had become a part of them. There were flowers in various jugs and vases Bill had collected over the years, there were herbs in bunches hanging from the beams in the ceiling, and there was Clive’s basket by the stove. No photographs, though, and memories that only reached as far back as the summer, but she was content with that. The past, her past, was one of the reasons for last night’s planning session. She sighed, went upstairs and got dressed, then returned to the kitchen and started making breakfast.
Sid came back down, put on his coat, and went outside to enjoy that first sublime rollup of the day. This was interrupted by Clive’s frantic barking at an old Land Rover that had pulled up at the gate. At the wheel of the mud-spattered vehicle was Hugh Dawlish. Sid opened the gate and Hugh drove in, parked, and asked if Bill was about.
‘He’s not down yet,’ Sid told him, ‘but I’m sure he will be soon. Come in and have a cup of tea while you wait.’
Hugh followed Sid into the kitchen and was immediately enveloped in the heady aroma of the bacon Lucy was frying in a large cast-iron pan. On the table was a small tower block of bread ready cut for the rashers. There was also an enormous bottle of brown sauce, a large slab of butter in a dish, and a pot of marmalade. Hugh looked at all this and thought of his own meagre breakfast of some gritty by-product of the miller’s art and thought, wholesome grains be damned.
With a welcoming smile and a warm ‘Good morning,’ Lucy asked him if he had eaten yet. Hugh decided that even if he had eaten a full English with all the extras, twice, that morning, he would still have said no.
Bill finally emerged, looking better than he felt, and greeted Hugh warmly. As they ate, Hugh told him the reason for his visit. ‘Ian, one of my chaps, was out on the far field next-but-one to your home meadow this morning and saw a man walking this way, keeping close to the hedgerow. Ian was in a tractor and by the time he had driven up to get through the field gate, the man had turned back. He shouted something about looking for a place to pee and went out through a gap in the hedge and onto the road. Ian was going to go over and find out more, but he heard a motorbike roar off so didn’t bother. I just thought you should know.’
Bill looked at Sid. ‘Warren, by the sound if it.’
‘What time was this?’ Lucy asked Hugh.
‘About eight this morning. My chap was checking some covers we’re planning to shoot over, and we always keep a lookout for poachers and pikeys this time of year.’
‘There’s a small gap in the hedge by the road,’ said Sid, ‘but no lay-by as such. I’ll go see if I can tell where the little shit parked up.’
‘So, you know who it might be,’ said Hugh, concerned but not wanting to pry.
Lucy looked at him and her face was troubled.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘We, I, probably should have told you before now. It’s someone from my past, a really horrible man.’ She looked down at her hands for a moment and then back up at him, smiling wanly. ‘We’re dealing with it. It’s nothing for you to worry about, but thanks for letting us know.’
Bill and Sid murmured their agreement. Hugh didn’t want to press the matter and risk embarrassing Lucy, so he just said, ‘Well, if I can help in any way, you only have to ask.’
‘We will,’ said Lucy, ‘Thank you, Hugh.’
There were more murmurs of agreement from Bill and Sid. Hugh got up, put on his t
weed cap, and thanked Lucy for the lovely breakfast. She had been clearing up, passing plates to Sid, who was at the sink, but now she turned to look at Hugh as he went out. Putting down the dish she was holding, she followed him through the kitchen door and into the yard. The rain had stopped but the morning was still misty, dank, and cold, and she shivered slightly. Hugh noticed this and, without really thinking about it, put his hands on her shoulders. Her face was drawn and anxious.
Looking into her grey eyes, he said, ‘I don’t want to know your business, Lucy. Your past is your own country, but please believe me when I say I will help you in any way I can. Bill is a good man,’ he continued, ‘but he’s not well. Sid is as good a bloke in a fight as you could hope to have, but if you ever need a third Musketeer, promise you’ll ask me.’
Lucy smiled up at him and said simply, ‘I promise.’
Feeling as if the sun had suddenly come out, Hugh started his vehicle and slowly drove away. Lucy stood and watched him go, then waved as he turned into the lane.
Back in the kitchen Bill and Sid were in close conversation, muttering away like two rooks on a branch. When Lucy walked in, however, they both stopped and looked up.
‘Good chap, that Hugh,’ said Bill.
‘Excellent farmer,’ said Sid. ‘Solid character.’
‘Not had a happy life,’ said Bill.
‘Needs to get away from the farm more,’ said Sid. ‘Learn to enjoy himself now and then.’
Lucy flashed them both a ‘that’ll do’ look and the conversation immediately turned back to the motive behind Warren’s intrusion. ‘I don’t doubt the little shit was doing a recce to see how he could sneak into the yard here,’ said Sid.
‘If he came into the yard through the meadow gate and that passage, he’d have the run of the place,’ said Lucy.
‘Aye,’ said Bill with a scowl, ‘and lots of nooks and crannies to hide up in.’
‘Well,’ Sid mused, ‘with a little imagination we can make that gate very interesting for the bugger.’
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