Countdown to Terror

Chapter Eleven

The Gent had arrived back from his travels on Wednesday 9th May, but Jenny was not due back from her holiday in Florida for a couple weeks. He was at a bit of a loose end. Lily had assured him that all was well with the pigs and chickens, although a couple were not laying too well, which she put it down to the hot weather. He met with the farmer later on and agreed his list of chores to perform in return for Lily’s services.

Speaking with Lily made him feel nostalgic and remorseful for what might have been. His own daughter Sam had died aged six after a battle with leukaemia. He had been away at the time, for which his wife Mary had never forgiven him – and that had been the beginning of the end of the marriage. She’d often said he should retire, but it was never that easy. Once committed, they could have you for life, which as a young man in the wrong place at the wrong time could be short. The calls now came infrequently, but the regular pension came in very handy to supplement more lucrative but sporadic contracts. He would ask to meet his recruitment agent and perhaps go to a few arduous networking meetings to procure more boring consultancy assignments. These soul-searching thoughts reminded him that he had not checked his bank statement for a while. He went online, cursing as he struggled to remember his new PIN number, and then again when he had to go back a page to tick a box that he had actually read a message. His pension was in: that was good, but he would need to transfer money from the deposit account to pay a credit card and meet the end-of-month bills. He logged out of the bank and logged into his investments account, which he kept for a rainy day or to provide further pension when necessary. The stock markets were down again, and like many of the disillusioned masses, he wondered whether to cut his losses and cash them in. Further thought was too difficult for now. It was easier to put the kettle on and leave it for another day.

He looked back at his list of chores for something more exciting than banking. The only unusual one was for the following morning. Gilbert the farmer had asked if he could be around to help with the rounding up and loading of a dozen Holstein heifers for auction at Beeston cattle market. Although he’d done it before, it was not a job to relish. Apart from the mud and gore, being trodden on the foot by a cow – albeit not maliciously – was painful, and even a gentle nudge into steel gates left painful bruises.

In the evening he attended a Cheshire Dinner Club disco event, which was most successful. He surprised himself by dancing to seventies and eighties music with Sheila, a golf-playing architect. He offered to take her out on the following Friday.

The following Friday morning, the Gent had to take the Saab to a Kwik Fit garage for an MOT. The car turned out to need two new tyres, but otherwise it passed with flying colours. He was taking Sheila, the architect, out to dinner that evening, so after a light lunch of grilled halloumi cheese and salad, he washed and polished the Saab and then began to think about the Sword of Allah incident. He had not yet heard from Jenny about Samir’s parents; he would put off ringing her until the next day.

As befitting an architect, Sheila’s home was a most attractive typical Cheshire thatched cottage nestled on the edge of a small village between the A50 and A34. Sheila answered the door still wearing a dressing gown, and left him to be entertained by Tara her Siamese cat. Tara promptly deposited herself on his lap, leaving him to tentatively brush hairs off his Ted Baker light grey slacks. Ten minutes later, Sheila was ready: dressed in a flattering figure-hugging outfit by Christian Dior, offset with a fine gold pendant and matching earrings.

He was out to impress, so they were dining at the Swettenham Arms, a delightful country inn and the only pub in the hard-to-find village of Swettenham. There was one road in and out of the village. Approaching from the north, a shortcut was available but this required driving through a ford, and he did not want to do that in the Saab.