Countdown to Terror

Chapter 20

It was Saturday the morning after returning from London. He’d nearly made a pass at Jenny several times whilst they were in London, and it was obvious he would not be rebuffed. The trouble was he was still shocked following the death of Sheila only weeks earlier. He cleared away his breakfast dishes and went to check the chickens. He tried to shoo them all to go outside, but Doris just sat on her perch, a sure sign of something – illness or old age, he thought. He would keep an eye on her and have a word with the farmer.

After the usual chit-chat, and having been given his chores, he broached the question. ‘Doris not looking so good today, Gilbert is she laying eggs alright?’

Gilbert seemed downcast. ‘She’s been like that a day or so now. Maybe she’s had enough. She’s getting on a bit, and they were rescue hens, as you know.’

‘OK, you could well be right. We’ll just have to keep an eye on her,’ he concurred. The next morning Doris was in a heap at the bottom of her perch, stone-cold dead, and he buried her in the field behind the barn. It wasn’t that sad, as she’d had a good couple of years after being rescued – better than being got by the fox.

He checked in with Jenny and offered to take her out that night, but as she started her new job the next morning, they made a date for later in the week. Needing the bathroom, he began whistling and was shocked to catch sight of his face in the mirror, smirking lasciviously.

After lunch and feeling the need for exercise, he pumped up the tyres on his old bike and rode over to Beeston Castle, a former Royal castle in Beeston, in the west of Cheshire. Perched on a rocky sandstone crag 350 feet above the Cheshire Plain, it was built in the 1220s by Ranulf de Blondeville, 6th Earl of Chester, on his return from the Crusades. The castle, now in ruins, is owned by English Heritage and designated a Grade I building. Today the Sealed Knot Society was staging an English Civil War re-enactment event. It was looking more like a draw than a win for the Cavaliers, but it was good fun and the sun looked as though it would burn down all afternoon. The ice cream vendor was busy and happy to chat as he made a large ninety-nine cornet, which was gratefully received by the Gent as he rested his tired legs.

The sight of families with small children made him sad and melancholy at what might have been. He could have blamed Mary, his ex-wife, but that would be unfair. He cast his eye over the Cheshire countryside and could see children riding horses not far away and thought of Sam, who had been riding for six months when she contracted leukaemia. Taking after her mother, she was fine-boned with long, thick, dark hair. He imagined her in the afternoon sunshine, her dark hair flowing in the breeze. An old grey pony called Henry had been her favourite, a gentle beast but with spirit when encouraged. A tousled ginger-haired boy firing a party-popper at him broke the moment and he moved on.

Climbing to the top of the crag, he was afforded one of the most spectacular views of any castle in England, stretching across eight counties from the Pennines in the east to the Welsh mountains in the west. On the way back down he could see the Roundheads and the Cavaliers were packing up and families returning from their walks in the surrounding woodlands and nature trails. It was time to make the ride home.

On Monday morning, 25th June, he realised he had not checked his landline for messages from the day before. That was the trouble with the British Telecom answer message service: you had to remember to pick up the phone unless there was another call, in which case there was a pause in the dial tone. There was a message from Jack Spinner to say that a meeting was being held on Monday and asking whether he had any news, and if not he would call back early Monday afternoon. True to his word, the call came at twenty five minutes past two.