Angel Hunt (27 page)

‘Pretend we've taken a cab out of Cambridge. They have black cabs there. We'll just be spectators and we'll mingle in. When we see which way the hunt sets off, then we'll know which fields to scent and we can zip on ahead.'

She'd got it all thought out, I had to give her that.

‘Won't people be a wee bit suspicious if a taxi-load of people like that turn up?'

I pointed to the two girls with CND earrings who were helping each other into Margaret Thatcher rubber masks.

‘We'll crouch down in the back,' said Lara, bristling.

‘So how are you going to mingle with the spectators?'

Lara's eyebrows came together in a frown so hard it must have hurt. Behind her, Stephanie mouthed ‘me' and pointed a finger at her chest.

‘Tell you what,' I said, ‘why don't Stephie and I mingle and see what we can find out? If I'm on my own, I'm not a threat to anybody, and Stephie knows her way around the area.'

Stephanie beamed in malicious triumph at the back of Lara's head.

‘Okay, but –' she looked around ‘– me, Tania, Jim and Lee stay in the back.'

That seemed to settle it, not that I had any further say in the matter.

I nodded to Stephie to follow and headed for Armstrong, only to run into Tony the army type in the hallway. He was emerging from the cellar door under the staircase with Billy Tuckett's video camera under his arm.

‘I say,' he grinned, ‘jolly good plan, isn't it? Tactically very well thought out.'

I just smiled at him and didn't say that as far as I was concerned, the Stirrup Cup had sounded the best bit.

 

 

 

 

 

There were more spectators than I'd imagined, and more police. Whole families had turned out to see the hunt off, because it was exactly the sort of thing they'd seen on Christmas cards and calendars for years and years. It was traditional; it was British. Show them a fox
after
a successful hunt, and they'd probably say that wasn't what they had come for. But they never saw that; they were home cracking walnuts and watching
White Christmas
or
Casablanca
by then. But who was I to judge? Let's face it, that many people gathered on the street at one time in Hackney meant there was a race riot going on.

A brace of traffic cops – you can tell by the chequerboard pattern round their hats – waved me over and told me to park where I could off the road. They were worried about double parking, not looking for hunt saboteurs.

I pulled over onto the verge of the lane, about 300 yards from the famous hangman's gibbet itself. I left enough space between Armstrong and a Ford Sierra so that I could turn him on his lock if need be. As I wasn't sure which way we would leave, I couldn't do my usual and park in the optimum getaway position (Rule of Life No 277). Behind me, a Volvo estate car – the only vehicle less aerodynamic than the London black cab – pulled in and disgorged a youngish couple and six kids, four of which were two sets of twins. It must be something in the water, I thought.

I let them troop by, the two sets of twins wearing either red or green coats depending on their age. Well, if you can't tell them apart, why not colour-code them?

‘All clear,' I said through the glass partition.

Lara's task force, crouched down on the floor, looked as if they were practising for an orgy. Stephie, the only one sitting upright and comfortable, smiled a smug smile down at them.

‘I'm ready, Roy. Let's go,' she said, like she was leading the local Brownie pack on manoeuvres. And I'll swear she deliberately trod on Lara's leg as she climbed out.

I got out and almost fell down some sort of drainage ditch – that's the trouble with the countryside, there's grass everywhere so you can't see where you're putting your feet – but luckily no-one was watching. As cool as if nothing had happened, I pretended to lock the driver's door and hop-skipped to catch up with Stephie.

‘‘Morning, Mrs Jones. Hello, Fiona, I can see what you got for Christmas! Hi, Desmond, how's things?' yelled Stephie as we marched down the middle of the traffic-free lane.

‘Hey, keep it down,' I snarled. ‘We're not supposed to attract attention.'

‘Don't be stupid, stupid. They know me. It would look really punk if I didn't say anything to them. Hello, Donna!' She shouted this to a girl her age standing forlorn in anorak and gumboots with a younger brother stuck on each hand as if she'd arrested them. ‘I see you got more zits for Christmas.'

I hunched down into my coat and tried to pretend she wasn't with me. If she'd been three years older, or I'd been ten years less clever …

Near the gibbet, the hunters had gathered in a semi-circle, their coats bright and shiny, their nostrils flaring and their breath frosting on the crisp morning air. And the horses were quite impressive too.

And they were so big. Okay, some of the younger riders had ponies that could have stepped out of Thelwell cartoons, but most of the riders were mounted on huge, muscular beasts that I would have needed a ladder to get on. I have to admit to being impressed by all that power and strength, and yet they had such tiny brains. They reminded me of a lot of people I knew in the East End. The sort of people who stood outside the rougher clubs wearing dinner jackets.

I had decided that the horses must be stupid, because they allowed such a bunch of nerds to dress up in red coats and top hats and sit on their backs. But then I realised that the nerds in question had organised a Range-Rover full of iced champagne and orange juice and were giving it away in liberal quantities. By the second glass they didn't seem such a bad bunch, and by the third I was positively warming to them. Though I couldn't for the life of me see why they wanted to leave the party and go haring off over a muddy field with a bunch of noisy dogs.

And the dogs
were
noisy, barking and howling from the big horsebox transporter they were kept in. A huntsman without a horse, their equivalent of a beat policeman, I suppose, emerged from the cab of the transporter with one of the hounds leaping down out of the cab and coming to heel behind him.

‘That the top dog, huh?' I asked Stephanie, glancing round for the nice maternal-looking lady with the tray of champagne I'd chatted to a few minutes before.

‘He's called Rex. Leader of the pack,' she said, sipping her well-spiked orange juice.

‘From the size of the footprints, Miss Baskerville, I'd have hoped for something bigger.'

‘Eh?'

‘Let it go.'

The whipper-in, or whatever he was called, led the dog Rex into the middle of the semi-circle of mounted huntsmen. Someone produced a plastic bowl and put it on the ground, and then a red-coated, top-hatted, pink-faced old buffer called for champagne and a bottle was produced and Rex washed down his morning Winalot with Moet & Chandon. I took another glass from a passing tray to keep him company. I wouldn't let a dog drink alone.

A horse breathed noisily in my right ear, and I turned to look up into its frantic eyeball.

What are you doing here? it seemed to say.

‘Christ, that's clever,' I said to myself.

‘Hello, Father,' said Stephanie.

If I'd been expecting a red-faced Colonel, I couldn't have been more wrong. Stephie's dad didn't look much older than me, was about six foot four (though it's difficult to tell when the horse he was sitting on seemed to go up forever), bronzed and clean-shaven. Just the sort of guy you'd have on the front of paperback romantic novel. I bet myself that his tailored hunting gear cost nearly as much as the horse.

He leaned forward in his saddle and pointed his riding whip at his daughter, the leather thong bit at the end dangling about two inches in front of my nose.

‘Stay away from your bolshie vicar friend, Steph. If he starts any trouble, someone'll get hurt.'

‘Is that a threat or a promise?' Stephie came back, thrusting her bottom lip out at him.

‘Neither,' he said quietly. My head flicked between them like a spectator at Wimbledon. ‘Half these grockles can't handle a horse at the best of times. When they're half-pissed and people are yelling and screaming, they're bound to get out of control, and somebody will get hurt.'

That sounded eminently sensible to me. But Stephie just redoubled her sulk.

‘And you go easy on that champagne,' he added, and she didn't deny it.

Then he pointed the whip across the road to where a blonde woman was sitting in the open tailgate of an Audi estate car. She wore a soft leather bomber jacket and Gloria Vanderbilt jeans that had been moulded on, and totally impractical high-heeled ankle boots.

‘And for God's sake keep an eye on your mother. She's on her second bottle already.'

I wondered if I should volunteer; but then I thought of the whip and that big horse and those hooves and let it pass.

Mr Stephie moved off and joined a huddle of horsemen. Stephie tugged at my sleeve.

‘They're up to something,' she hissed in my ear.

‘You're right,' I said. ‘They're closing the bar.'

We were both right. The huntsmen were gathering into formation and the whipper-in had taken the rather unsteady Rex over to the horse-box transporter where the hounds were baying louder by the minute. Local women acting as barmaids for the morning were threading through the spectators collecting empty glasses on trays.

‘They're going to go early,' said Stephie excitedly, ‘before Geoffrey gets here.'

The whipper-in and a couple of helpers were unbolting the tailgate of the horsebox. The hounds got louder and Rex took up a gunfighter's stance in the road, waiting to marshal his troops

‘Dammit. They must have been tipped off,' said Stephie.

‘They have look-outs,' I said.

‘How do you know?'

‘The guys on foot, they've all got mobile phones in their pockets.' I thought everybody had noticed.

‘Bastards! Somebody in the village must have told them Geoffrey's lot has set out.'

‘Well, I didn't think they were using them to call up an air strike.'

Stephie tried to wither me with a look, but I'd been withered by experts in my time.

The hounds were released onto the road and they snapped and wagged around Rex, who stood stock still and tried to look imperious. He was probably as drunk as some of the riders.

‘No horns,' said Stephie as if it meant something.

‘What?'

‘They're not blowing their hunting horns. It would tip off Geoffrey that they're on the move. They'll wait until they're off the road.'

‘Well, we can certainly do something about that. Come on.'

‘Whereto?'

‘Back to Armstrong – the cab. We've got to stop Lara from attacking them right here and now.'

‘Too many innocent spectators around, you mean?'

‘Don't be daft. Too many police.'

We broke from the crush, squeezing by a horse intent on taking its rider sideways, despite what he wanted, and set off down the road at a brisk stroll.

‘Don't run,' I'd told Stephie, ‘it'll give the game away.'

She seemed to buy that. She was concerned about the hunters; I was worried about the cops.

‘Where the hell have you been?' snapped Lara, still crouched down in the back of Armstrong.

‘Mingling,' I smiled back. ‘Stay where you are, the game's afoot.'

‘What's he on about?' hissed one of Lara's shock troops.

‘The hunt's moving off and coming this way,' I said through the glass screen as I climbed into the driver's seat. ‘Now stay down and we'll turn round. There are cops directing traffic here, and I want to get clear.'

‘They're early, the swine,' somebody said, which I thought was a bit rich. Don't swine have rights too?

Stephie made to get in the back, but I waved her into the front and the space normally reserved for luggage.

‘Crouch down and stay down,' I said. ‘You're not supposed to ride there.'

She was delighted to be doing something that was (a) illegal and (b) something Lara wasn't doing.

‘Ow! What the hell is this?' she swore, having sat on my trumpet case.

‘Something I brought for emergencies like this. Open it.'

As she fumbled with my trumpet, I started Armstrong and did a one-lock turn, heading down the road. One of the traffic cops actually waved me through, thinking I was being sensible and getting out of the way before the hunt appeared.

Around the first bend, and out of sight of the policemen, I slowed at the first five-bar gate into a field on our right.

‘This one?' I asked.

Stephie shook her head. ‘No way. That's reserved for experimental crops. Scientific farming and all that shit. They wouldn't go across there. Try the next. Hey, this is a trumpet.'

‘Top of the class, kid. Find the mouthpiece. It's in the felt-covered box at the front.'

The next gate was a hundred yards away, and it was open.

‘This looks like it,' said Stephie. ‘That's Knapworth Woods over there.'

She pointed to a lump of green three fields away.

‘Okay, team, let's go for it,' I said into the back, and amid some choice cursing, Lara and crew stumbled out.

They had all put their masks on, and they went about their business with frenzied enthusiasm, scattering peppermint and pepper and aniseed essence all around the entrance to the field and a good way into it.

I got out and held out my hand to Stephie for the trumpet.

‘You're going to play?' she asked, wide-eyed.

‘I'm going to warn Geoffrey,' I said primly. ‘What do you think he'll do if he hears a horn?'

‘He'll get here bloody quick,' she said, cottoning on.

I licked my lips and fluffed the first three notes of the opening to ‘West End Blues'.
Maybe I had been a bit ambitious. So I slipped into ‘Perdido',
as there was nobody there to criticise the break.

The horn did me proud, ringing out bell-like over the still frosty fields. Ah, Beiderbecke, eat your heart out. They say Buddy Bolden could be heard two miles away across New Orleans on a still night. Of course, he was in a loony-bin at the time.

Stephie was tugging my arm again, and I opened my left eye. She was pointing behind me. I stopped playing mid-phrase and turned.