Copyright 2014 Douglas Spencer Wallis
CHAPTER ONE
Basil Ackroyd gripped the wrought iron railings of the town hall steps as he tried to make some sense of the morning’s disastrous start. Spitting tobacco and cursing, he glowered at the main square of his realm, where the sun cast dappled patterns through the trees onto the ancient cobbles of Durac.
On the other side of the square all was quiet save for the soft hiss of the café’s ancient coffee machine. The morning sunlight flooded through the door of the Café du Centre and lit the fine tracery of dust on the windows. The battered zinc bar reflected the rays onto the ceiling. Glancing up from his obsessive round of polishing, the barman watched as Mayor Ackroyd slammed the front door of the Town Hall behind him.
Sid interrupted his attention to the beer pump handles and reached for the best Cognac bottle from the shelf behind him. Setting two glasses on the bar, he awaited the arrival of the senior official of the town.
Trailing a cloud of cigar smoke, Basil set out across the cobbles to the café. His corpulent frame thrust through the glass door, cheeks puffing as he muttered to himself. Bumping into a plastic chair, he fixed it with a confrontational stare before pushing it roughly aside. His shaggy eyebrows were dishevelled and a lock of hair fell across his lined forehead.
The barman kept his silence until the worthy was seated on a stool and had nodded agreement to the proffered bottle. ‘Fine again today,’ Sid ventured.
Basil gathered the glass of cognac and downed it. 'Harrumph!'
The head of the commune, although blessed with an athletic physique in his youth, had allowed the pleasures of the flesh to render him somewhat out of condition. His swarthy complexion had taken the ravages of the sun well, but he now found the heat difficult. He did not like the sun and it was his habit to curse it whenever the subject arose, but today he just sat there and twiddled the glass between his stubby fingers, peering into its depths.
‘We’re in for a hot one today all right,’ Sid said.
‘Who bloody cares?’ Ackroyd hunched his neck deeper into his collar.
Flicking his cloth over his shoulder, Sid un-stoppered the Cognac in a business-like way once more. ‘Will you have a second?’
The Mayor nodded.
‘Are you all right, Basil? You seem a bit out of sorts this morning.’
‘Hardly bloody surprising!’ Basil snapped. ‘I’ve had that twittering crook of a Conseiller Général, Leconte, on the phone for the last half an hour. What a prat!’
‘Ah! Not good news?’ Sid lent on the bar in interest.
‘What? With that motherless pillock? God, I don’t know what the country is coming to when they let clueless berks like that get to positions of authority.’ The liquor sloshed down his thickset neck.
‘Quite; not the most sympathetic of characters around.’
The lofty President of the Conseiller Général, Monsieur Leconte, a man with an all-consuming passion for self-aggrandizement, was charged with the well-being of the region.
‘Trying to interfere again, I expect,’ Sid said.
‘Who does the idiot think he is? Sticking his snotty little nose in my affairs will get his ass kicked, even if I have to go and do it myself.’
Sid noted the fine spray of spittle flying from Basil’s moustache as it caught the sunbeams from the doorway. The barman nodded with solemnity at Basil’s indignation. ‘Overstepped the mark has he then?’
