(5) A Shocking Lack Of Lunch
There are lacks and there are shocking lacks. Missing lunch, on any day really, fell into the second category. Here he was, the epitome of independent wealth, not a care in the world, every member of the service industries ready to undulate to his every whim, fishtailing around every sideroad in Muskoka, trying madly to recall exactly where Galen’s cottage was. All things considered, the trusty Toyota was doing rather well, probably hadn’t been tuned up in well over six months, never mind the tires rotated.
Two bloody thirty and not the remotest chance of a pit stop on the horizon. Damn he was peckish. And no, the McArches drive through in Braverhurst was not an option. Big change from Hetty’s stay, where lunch and its plotting had been the pivotal event of the day. She’d flown out form Pearson only yesterday, after what could only be described as a pleasant stay. Never has timewasting been so much fun Andrew, she had complimented. An attribute for which Andrew had declared a growing fondness despite the accustomed Presbyterian misgivings. That exchange had been over a last glass of port before Andrew’s Airport Shuttle. How civilised and charming it now looked, as Andrew, newly minted desperado, drove the getaway car in this mad dash for safety. Safety for his two charges in the back seat as much as for his tender self.
Glancing at them reassuringly as he did from time to time, keeping his anxiety down in his stomach, he thought perhaps their ruffled feathers had been smoothed over for the time being. And even assuming he found Galen’s cottage and the key’s hiding place, as he’d been told one tipsy night months before, there was no guarantee he’d find the power switch or fuse box or whatever he needed to supply the necessities of life. And food, other than cans of soup and peas, there’d be nothing. He’d likely have to drive straight back to Braverhurst and suck up every available lobster quiche and lamb vindaloo in sight.
He struggled to recall Galen’s directions. Another windy sideroad through the bush, a lake two miles down. Cripes it had only been three hours since he’d taken, on a whim, a drive over to one of Hugo’s new sites, itself only mentioned in passing and remembered only because Andrew had admired its elaborate facade on an earlier drive up Gloucester. For no good reason other than some unexpected free time before the inevitable and damnably difficult choice of lunch venue, he’d turned off from Lakeshore and crawled up the avenue admiring. Coming to 247, though why he recalled the number was a mystery and edging over to park on the dirt shoulder by the cedar hedge, he stopped behind what he took to be a tradesman’s van. The usual dirty white speckled with rust, what else could it be?
There must have been a gap in the hedge he’d never noted before, as his two care packages were being bundled through it and into the side door of the van. The handcuffs and the hoods were the give away. The two ruffians doing the bundling looked, well, determined, and likely had strategically placed muscles underneath their jean jackets. As the van moved off and he followed with as much discretion as he could manifest without prior training, he wondered if they were gym fashioned steroid junkies. Apparently they all were, if you believed the articles in the popular press.
The van did not speed off, spitting shoulder dust and wedges of grass in its wake, as it might have done in some action thriller, it moved placidly into Gloucester and purred north, stopping politely at MacDougal, the driver no doubt looking both ways, and turned gently east towards Hartwell. Andrew, although disinclined to be in what was termed, hot pursuit, nevertheless thought following at a discreet distance, was advisable. He had been a professional driver for years, he could follow anyone anywhere.
