Quid Pro Quo

Chapter Nine

I spent that night, cold and largely sleepless, in the farmhouse. Ty had given me a large khaki sleeping bag that did very little to iron out the unevenness of the bare floorboards and steadfastly refused to provide any significant warmth. The material smelled musty and old and reminded me of interminable evenings at scout camp. I slept so lightly that I awoke when rolling from side-to-side. By the time I rose from the most fitful of sleeps, my back felt like a group of Geordie panel beaters had been given free rein on it the Monday after a defeat by Sunderland.

I was cold and shivering when I awoke. Watery sunlight fell across the room from the small leaded window, but its golden touch couldn't even begin to put the warmth back into my blood.

Edge's own sleeping bag was not only empty but had also been meticulously rolled and replaced into its small, toggled compression sack. I glanced at my watch and groaned; it was 6:05 am. These early mornings in the employ of Ty were becoming an alarming trend.

I'm not exactly what you would call a morning person. More often than not, it took an act of either God or bladder to rouse me from the comfort of my bed. That morning, as on most, it was the latter. A thought flitted briefly across my mind that I could solve both my urination and temperature problems without leaving the cocoon of the sleeping bag, but I didn't think Ty would appreciate the terminal damage that it would do to his property.

I struggled out of the unobliging bedding and stumbled down the stairs. Ty was nowhere to be seen, but I thought nothing of it. I urgently needed my wake-up piss but found only a note scribbled onto a piece of cardboard that was propped up on the toilet lid. It read; DON'T USE ME.

This message was not well-received.

Still wearing only my boxers, I padded through the hall; swaying from side-to-side with the recently awoken confusion of a drunk. I stuck my nose cautiously out of the front door. Ty seemed to be rummaging in the back of the Land Rover, there was a great clanking and crashing emerging from beneath the canvas cover. Occasionally an object in a khaki bag or a tool would arc out of the back and crash into a growing pile on the cobbles of the farmyard.

"Ahem..." I gave a gentle cough. I didn't want to confront Ty in my boxers again, he might think that I was manufacturing such occasions.

"Just piss out here, Satchmo," he called from the back of the car. There was no 'hello', no 'good morning'. How rude, I thought to myself.

Then again, he wasn't the one standing about in his pants.

"It's quite liberating," Ty enlightened me.

"I'm sure," I replied despite being far from sure. I had been brought up to think that such things were akin to shoplifting or holding hands with girls, but needs must, and the Devil was not so much driving as poking at my bladder with his pitchfork.

Seeing nothing obvious to piss against, I settled for just pointing downwind with my back to Edge.

"What's the plan for today, Satchmo?" Ty asked over both of our shoulders.

It was cold, grey, and just beginning to drizzle. Feeling even more awkward due to my near nakedness and al fresco micturating, I swiftly assessed my immediate priorities.

"I thought I'd get dressed, have a wash, maybe a little breakfast, then off into the village to make some enquiries," I replied.

"Jonah will be around later so you can talk to him then..." Ty shouted over the noise of more objects being defenestrated from the car "...and there's no such thing as a shower here, yet."

Edge added the last word with intent before dumping a final bag of tools on the ground and walking back into the house.

He left me gazing after him despondently, the early morning breeze ruffling my boxer shorts.

*

Some two hours later I was in the village Post Office and General Store talking to a delightful coffin-dodger by the name of Eliza Petunia Emery-Stanthorpe.

Ms. Stanthorpe looked to be so old that I judged that it was only a combination of her heavy woollen stockings and the continuing intervention of the Divine keeping her upright.

Despite the fact that her years had not just advanced but high-tailed it out of sight, she was as sharp as a tack. For a woman who was born in Pebble Deeping, and looked likely to complete her journey through life at any moment in the same location, she had an astoundingly broad knowledge of the outside world.

I had spent the better part of our fifteen-minute conversation trying to steer her towards the topic of the late Professor Wimple. I had hoped to coax any rumours of treasure or misadventure out of her, but she was having none of it. Eliza seemed to be revelling in the arrival of a face that had not heard any of her myriad stories regarding the life and times of the village.

"... There were those that said the marriage wouldn't last! Wouldn't last! Tell that to their twelve grandchildren," she smiled, causing her wrinkles to develop wrinkles.

"We saw a funeral at the church yesterday," I tried again, more directly this time.

"Hmm? Not so many people there these days of course, what with all those folk having moved out of the village," she replied, lost in thought.

"Moved out?" I asked, momentarily distracted. "Why have people left the village?"

"Oh? Only them around the outskirts, you know? Sold up for that development..." Eliza's eyes swam in and out of focus. "What was it you wanted again, dear?"

"I was asking about the funeral," I replied, somewhat exasperated.

"Yes, dear Professor Wimple, such a nice man. Educated. Why, many's the time he'd say to me, Eliza, he'd say, did you see the Prime Minister on the television? and I would remind him of how I have no television what with old Alf being allergic before he died," she rambled, absently rubbing the backs of her gnarled hands.

I picked up a chocolate bar and nervously fingered a tin of processed meat that may have been from the batch that kept Noah going on the ark.

"One pound fifteen, dear," Eliza said, sharp as a whip crack.

I noted that she was straight to the point with a sale in the offing. I replaced the can on the shelf and looked around for a packet of mints.

"Mints?" she replied when I had asked about the availability of such things. "Ah, yes," she craned her neck back and peered upwards through the thick half-moon glasses perched on the tip of her nose.

Eliza scanned the shelves that covered the wall from floor to ceiling behind her, then reached out and grasped a wooden ladder tightly with a withered claw and tugged it hard. The ladder creaked around the storage on some sort of roller mechanism and came to rest at her feet. To my utter amazement, she hauled herself from the ground onto the first rung, which caused the whole apparatus to roll several centimetres along the rail with Eliza swaying from it.

"Poor Dr. Wimple, all alone," she chirped from two rungs up, unperturbed by the lateral movement of the ladder and the creaking of the wooden shelves. Her task seemed impossible to me; she might as well be tackling the North face of the Eiger. Her spindly limbs were shaking with the strain and dust motes rained down like snow, disturbed by her racking breaths.

"I thought he was a Professor," I said, having visions of the headlines in the local paper; Village Heroine Plummets to Death After City Slicker Requests Mints!

"He was, dear, but now Dr. Wimple is left at Holly Corner in such difficult times," Eliza's voice drifted down to me as gently as the sheets of dust that she was disturbing on the shelves.

I wasn't paying much attention to what Eliza was telling me now that she was over a metre off the ground and the ladder was creaking and groaning as if it were about to become detached from whatever mechanism held it to the shelving. I decided to take decisive action before gravity inevitably prevailed.

"You know, I think I'll just have this chocolate bar," I said.

Eliza swivelled her head and the sudden movement shifted the ladder another few centimetres along the rail.

"It's no trouble, young man," she said fixing me from on high with a beady gaze.

"No, no. I will be quite alright with just this, thanks," I responded hastily.

She shrugged; not an easy manoeuvre for one clinging to a ladder. Her descent was no less perilous and heart stopping, thankfully not literally in her case, and only marginally faster than the climb.

Having regained terra firma, Eliza took my money and rung it up on a till that still registered sixpence. I pocketed my change and became confused, not for the first time.

"Dr. Wimple..." I began.

"Yes, poor thing, left all alone now. She's a strong will though; I daresay all will be well with the passing of time," the old storekeeper interrupted.

Full of relief that Eliza remained on this mortal coil and that I now had some breakfast, I said my farewells and exited the shop munching a mouthful of chocolate while deep in thought.

*

As I walked back through the village, the sun had risen and was just beginning to burn off the dew. A slight mist rose over the fields and birds twittered happily. A smile crept across my face. This was England and all it needed was the fat middle-aged cricket team on the green to complete the image.

I nipped back into The Sickle to see if anyone else had anything to say on Prof. Wimple, or Morgan Edge for that matter. Sadly, the bar was quiet, and no amount of prompting would get the barman or the scant customers who were enjoying a cooked breakfast to talk at all.

I toured the remainder of the sights; gazing into fields and admiring the simplicity of the few cottage gardens that were dotted along the winding road that ran through the village. I observed a herd of cows and remarked, not for the first time, how suspicious they looked huddled conspiratorially into the corner of a wide-open field. It was as if they were plotting; conniving to bring about the downfall of their cruel human overlords. Or perhaps it was merely that the grass in that part of the pasture was especially appetizing.

I mused that there seemed to be a surviving member of the Wimple family, maybe they would be able to fill me in on the arrangement between the professor and Edge senior. It was certainly the third point of call for my enquiries, the second being a discussion about the death of Morgan Edge with my contacts in the police force and the first being some lunch to quieten my grumbling stomach. I rather disconsolately headed back to Holly Corner where Ty had been a very busy man.

"Satchmo," he nodded at my arrival, beads of sweat running down his brow. He stood in the last stall of the empty cowshed. I had only found him by following the rhythmical bangs of his hammer on what seemed to be an old steel oil-drum.

"Hi Tyrone," I replied with a half-wave.

"Call me Ty," he shot back. "For the love of God, give me a hand with this."

He was holding the drum in his arms and was trying to hoist it towards a circular hole in the roof of the cowshed. The vessel was at least a metre tall and half of that across. If I had been asked to accurately describe it in three words, it would have been a long time before I would have suggested 'light'.

I obliged, and together we fed the rim of the make-shift water tank up through the hole.

"Right. Just hold it there while I knock in the brackets," Ty breathed.

With no more warning, he removed his hands from the drum and the whole weight flooded down through my shoulders. It felt as if I were holding Bernard Manning aloft. My knees went weak, and I quickly lost all feeling in my arms.

"Christ! What does this weigh?" I panted, inwardly praying that Ty would get the brackets into the wall before both my limbs popped free of their shoulders and the base of the drum fell and brained me. Chances of cerebral injury and proximity to Tyrone Edge seemed to be closely linked.

"Shh, and hold it still," he scolded me sternly. Three quick blows of the hammer and one bracket was in.

"I asked around the village this morning," I started to report, as much to take my mind off the pain. "Nobody seems to know anything about any treasure, nor if your uncle and the Professor were on to something."

"What Morgan knew would not reach the ears of anyone he did not want it to." Three more bangs followed. "You can let go now," he breathed heavily.

I did. Leaning my back against the wooden stall divide, I sank to the concrete floor.

"What is that for, anyway?" I asked, not unreasonably.

"It's the new shower," Ty replied.

Obviously, how silly of me. "Where's the plumbing?" I asked.

"God provides the plumbing," he said making tinkling rain gestures, wiggling his fingers in front of the boyish smile on his face.

"And if it doesn't rain..."

"Then there's the hose from the tap there," he pointed to a length of green tubing that ran through a small hole in the wooden wall. "Or, if you're feeling particularly frisky, there is the pool in the river out by the boat house."

"Wouldn't it be simpler, and warmer, to just plumb a shower into the farmhouse?" I asked.

"Satchmo, modern man seems to forget his place in the way of things. There is no finer way to wash than in cold rainwater. You'll see," he said.

That sounded ominous.

"Besides which, when I've put the solar bag up there it will be lukewarm, or hot, depending on the weather," Ty said, seeming a little hurt by my scepticism.

He picked up a large heavy and durable black sack with a nozzle tap fitted to one end. I remained dubious that such a thing would provide me with a warm shower in the morning.

"Just let me shin up the roof and get this set up, and then we can get some lunch and talk about your morning," Ty clapped me on the shoulder on his way out of the shed. I tried to hide the wince of pain as he did so.

With the new shower in place, we left the cowshed and crossed the small, cobbled farmyard to the front door of the farmhouse.

I heard the sharp sound of a dry twig breaking beneath a heavy boot behind us. Ty and I turned and stared at two enormous shapes of men that had appeared from behind Ty's Land Rover.

Both of the men lumbering into view were large. Actually, large barely did them justice as a description. They were each at least six feet tall and wider than an American's fridge. It would not be exaggerating to say that their combined weight would send an elephant bouncing from its seat on a see-saw.

The pair lumbered towards us, wearing matching denim shirts with shiny faux mother-of-pearl buttons and dirty brown corduroys. They put me in mind of much larger, hairier, and less intelligent incarnations of Tweedledum and Tweedledee.

I looked at Ty quizzically. He raised an eyebrow and gave an almost imperceptible shrug in reply.

The men halted within a brawny arm's reach of us, effectively blocking out the weak midday sun. From the corner of my eye, I saw Ty raise himself almost imperceptibly onto the balls of his feet and shift his weight into a side-on stance.

"Edge?" The one on the right rumbled from behind lank and greasy locks that hung across his face like trailing jungle vines.

"Yes?" Ty replied.

"We 'ave got a message for you," the hulk on the left spoke and it sounded as if the noise were produced by the aggravated rubbing of boulders deep within his massive chest.

"You're not welcome 'ere," the man on the right chipped in with a similar growl.

"Pack up and get out and nobody gets hurt," the first man grunted. With that message concluded, both men folded thick arms across their barrel chests and waited for Ty's response.

While I was taking a moment to digest this bizarre turn of events an extraordinary thing happened; Ty laughed.

Loudly, deeply, Ty laughed so hard that he had to bend double while I cast a curious gaze in his direction. His laughter seemed to disconcert Tweedledum and Tweedledee, it was clearly not the effect they envisioned their ultimatum would have. Finally, he took a deep breath and raised himself upright.

"Did you guys learn that all on your own or is it written on your hand?" he managed to say between stifled giggles.

My jaw dropped. Openly provoking two such behemoths seemed suicidal.

The men's expressions darkened, low brows furrowed in unison, and they made to come for us. I instinctively started to reason with them.

"Come on guys, what's brought all of this on?" I held my hands up, palms out in a let's stop and calm down gesture.

Ty answered my question for them. "They think we're going to report them to the RSPCA and spoil all their late-night fun with the cattle," he said, making pumping motions with his groin.

I stared incredulously at this turn of events and could only groan. This turned out to be a mistake because, had I taken the time to look forward, I might not have been lifted bodily from the ground by the neck.

Tweedledum now had my head held firmly in both hands and was shaking me about like a gorilla wafting a bamboo shoot. My feet kicked uselessly in the air, my throat tightened as if in a vice and shooting colours began appearing in front of my eyes. I summoned all the strength I had and threw a punch into the puce plasticine lump that was his face.

It was a good straight, right on the nose. He blinked and squeezed harder.

I hit him again and again with everything I had, but the grip held, and I still dangled. My head swam, darkness crept into the corner of my vision, and I could feel my heart thumping against my ribs. I vaguely heard a sharp crack, like a rifle shot, and the tension vanished.

I dropped to the floor clutching my throat and gasping red-hot air into my lungs.

Tweedledum looked down in amazement at his right leg, now bent at an unnatural angle at the knee. Ty bounced from foot to foot at his side, having delivered the kick that had set me free.

Tweedledee, russet blood streaming down his face, rose ominously behind Ty.

I tried to shout a warning, but nothing came out save from a croaky rattle from my bruised throat. Arms like giant redwood trunks closed around Ty's chest in a bear hug. An animal roar came from Tweedledum who hopped over to help in the despatching of Edge, a knife suddenly in his hand.

Somehow, as my vision recovered focus, I got to my feet and flew at Tweedledum with everything I had.

I tackled him hard and low, rugby style, hitting his one good leg with all of my might and momentum. The huge man teetered and when he tried to stop himself from toppling over, he reflexively put all his weight onto his shattered knee. He crashed to earth emitting a piercing scream, the material of his jeans beginning to darken with blood.

Edge, meanwhile, had dropped to one knee and the man holding him had to bend at the waist in order to maintain his bear hug. Ty grunted, his face looking like a bruised beetroot as he pushed off the ground with all his might. He rose slowly, almost imperceptibly at first, lifting the vast weight of Tweedledee as if he were giving the huge man a piggy-back. At the apex of this lift, and without any warning, Ty flipped slightly groundward in a forward roll motion.

Overbalanced now, Tweedledee could not release his grip in time to protect himself and their combined weights met the ground through the crown of his skull. He made no sound, just released his crushing hold on Ty and rolled on to his back, lying still.

I lay gasping in the mud, adrenaline still coursing in my veins. Tweedledum's whimpering had fallen silent, the pain from his knee must have been too much, because he too had passed out. Ty helped me up off the ground, which hurt a lot more than it ought.

"Thank you," I croaked.

"No," he replied, kicking away the knife Tweedledum had dropped. "Thank you."