The Remarkables (The Remarkable Owen Johnson, part 1) (12 page)

13

Mrs Argyle blushed as Owen stared at her inquisitively, the thought of his elderly neighbour being married to a man who appeared to be at least fifty years her junior was a little unsettling, however much he reminded himself of the bizarre ageing process that affected their kind.

“Clive’s your husband?” he asked
her.

“Yes he is,” Clive answered
for her, “although you have me at a disadvantage. You know my name…?”

“They’ll be plenty of time for
that!” Mrs Argyle admonished. “I think it’d be prudent for us to move along, don’t you?”

“
Ahhh, my dear Cee. You always were the sensible one. You’re right of course. I don’t fancy another stand-off with our be-hatted friend.”

“Stand-
off?  To my eyes it looked like you’d given up.” Mrs Argyle was standing with her hands on her hips, a concerned frown resting on her forehead.

Cl
ive sighed. “My options seemed limited. And that light was just like when we-”

“This is Owen Joh
nson,” Mrs Argyle cut him off. Clive’s eyebrows rose slightly at Owen’s name, in what appeared to Owen as a look of recognition, as if he had heard his name before.

“Is it indeed?  Hello Ow
e-en.” Clive pronounced each syllable of Owen’s name separately, with a pause in between. He held out his hand and Owen shook it. Clive maintained his grip and used Owen to pull himself up, dusting himself down once he had stood up.

“
Why was Trilby after you?” Owen asked, to which Clive cocked his head, a confused look upon his face. “The one in the hat, I mean.”

“
Yes, I get the name. That’s the moniker I gave him as well. Great minds and all that, eh? As to what he wanted from me though: it beats me,” said Clive, casting a sideways glance at Mrs Argyle, and then looked around.  “Where are we?”

“Warren Street,” Mrs Argyle
stated. “We need to get out of the city. You seem to be on more than one radar today, Clive.”

“Yes,
those men in black did seem to be interested in me, as well as the police of course.” They made their way towards the station’s exit.

“
Men in black?” Mrs Argyle enquired sceptically.

“
Don’t look at me that way, Cee. There were some men dressed in black uniforms parked up in a van outside my house. They nearly cornered me when I was trying to give your friend back there the slip.”

“
We saw them drive away just before we reached your house,” Owen commented.

“You see!” Clive said triumphantly. “I’m not losing it.”

“Perhaps not,” Mrs Argyle conceded.  “Whoever they may have been they were followed closely by a selection of police officers, one of whom seemed to be from our old employers.”

“Did he now?” Clive said thoughtfully. “I d
idn’t get to see him up close. I presume it was the young man in the suit?”

Mrs Argyle nodded as confirmation.

“Interesting,” Clive continued. “Why the sudden interest in us, after all this time?”

“Good question,”
agreed Mrs Argyle, “Trilby made a house call on Owen yesterday, just after his father went missing. Christopher left this behind for me.” She handed Clive the note.

He looked at it briefly
then handed it back to her with a frown. “I don’t like this, Cee. They’ve hassled us before, but never so aggressively.”

They approached the barriers to
leave the station. Mrs Argyle exited the barrier first with Clive just behind, vanishing briefly as he passed through after her. Owen used his ticket and proceeded through, Clive reappearing just before him. Owen noticed a feint tingling sensation in his hands as Clive did so, and brought them in front of his hands to see if they looked different.

Clive n
oticed him doing this. “Electricity in your fingers?”

“Yeah,”
confirmed Owen, “it feels weird.”

“Handy little sensation
, that; lets you know when folks are up to no good around you,” Clive explained.

“Having Clive around usually results in that particular sensation
becoming a permanent feature,” Mrs Argyle said wryly.  Far from being offended, Clive seemed to be proud of this assessment.

They exited the station
and Clive hailed a black cab. Climbing aboard Clive knelt by the partition and leant forward. His coat hid his arms but he looking like he was tying his shoelaces. He seemed to vanish momentarily, only to reappear in the exact same position.

The driver turned in his seat and asked where they wanted to go.

“Windsor please,” Mrs Argyle requested.

“Windsor?”
the driver exclaimed.  “I don’t go out that far, love.”

“Don’t you call me-” Mrs Argyle started, but Clive interrupted her.

“£200?  Will that cover it?” Clive asked, pulling out a handful of notes from his pocket.

The driver’s eyes widened.
“Cash up front.”

“But of course,” Clive
agreed cheerfully, passing them through the gap in the partition. Mrs Argyle frowned disapprovedly at Clive, you beamed back at her. The cab turned in the road and drove away.

Owen turned to Mrs Argyle.
“Why aren’t you Mrs Merryfield?” he asked.

“Pardon?”
she replied.

“If you are married to Clive, why the different s
urname? Did you remarry?”

Mrs Argyle
shushed him, but then sighed. “Your inquisitiveness is unrelenting, Owen Johnson.” Owen expected to be told to be quiet, but Mrs Argyle smiled and continued in a hushed voice so that the driver could not hear. 

“Argyl
e is my maiden name. Our marriage wasn’t a traditional one; it was only for a mission where we were to be husband and wife. Some of us have difficulty in separating reality from fiction.”

Clive looked as if he was about to
argue, but decided against it.

“What was the mission?”
Owen asked.

“I wouldn’t call it a mission,” Clive said, “more of a honeymoon.”

Mrs Argyle scowled at him. “It was over sixty years ago, and for reasons that are unimportant. Now how about a bit of peace for a change?”

Clive and Mrs Argyle leant
back in their seats and gazed out of the windows in opposite directions, smiles on both of their faces.

The journey took about an hour, with both Mrs Argyle and Clive sitting quietly throughout. Owen tried to start a conversation a couple of times, as did the driver, but a look from Mrs Argyle silenced them both. In fact the only time one of them spoke was when they passed the statue of a woman on top of a chariot that stood opposite the Houses of Parliament. Clive saluted the bronze woman and cried out “hail Victoria!” The driver was quick to correct him, saying it was actually a depiction of the warrior Queen Boudicca.

Clive simply rolled his eyes and shook his head, muttering something about how ignorant the public were.

Once they had reached Windsor, Mrs Argyle gave the driver a piece of paper from her pocket and asked to be taken to the address written on it.

They
soon arrived outside a small house, a short distance from the castle. The river between reflected the bright blue sky, and the sun shone through the trees that lined the banks of the Thames, casting shadows on the grass. Owen smiled at the signs that gave directions to Legoland, remembering the taunts that his brother had given him about it the day before.

The house
resembled those typically drawn by children. It had two small windows either side of the front door, and two similar windows directly above. There was a chimney on the roof, from which smoke was escaping.

The front garden was filled with a multitude of colourful flowers that fi
lled the air with their fragrant scent. Surrounding the property was a white picket fence with a gate, through which the three of them passed.

Mrs Argyle led the way and knocked on the front door. It was swiftly answered by
a middle aged woman with a shock of bright red hair.

“Ah, you’ve arrived,” she said
in a commanding voice. She briefly looked at Clive and Owen, before turning away. “You’d better come in.”

Clive gave Owen a theatrical grimace and followed Mrs Argyle
into the house. Owen came last, closing the door behind him.

The walls of the hallways were covered in small paintings and
artefacts that looked like they were probably Roman in origin, although Owen couldn’t be sure as his knowledge of Ancient Rome was limited.

The décor continued into the living room, where they battled for wall space with various bookshelves, all of which seemed to document some part of
the rise and fall of the Roman Empire.

“Throu
gh here,” the woman called out. Owen followed the voice through to the garden. The garden was about twenty metres long and ended at a fence. It was just as colourful as the front garden but the plants looked very exotic, making it seem like a small piece of the Amazon rainforest in England. About halfway down the wide green lawn was a large metal table, where Ken was sitting with a young woman. “I’ll leave you to it whilst I make some tea,” the woman said as she re-entered the house.

Owen noted that
the woman at Ken’s side was quite beautiful, with shoulder length brown hair and big brown eyes, and was wearing a blue summer dress. She was waving manically with her left hand, with a smile that spread from ear to ear.

She stood up and walke
d towards the three newcomers. It was only when she was within handshaking distance that Owen realised that her right arm ended just above the elbow.

Suddenly conscious that he was starting to stare,
he held out his right hand in greeting. She rolled her eyes as she twisted her left hand to try and shake his, still smiling widely. Horrified, Owen quickly swapped his hands over and completed his undignified welcome.

“Hi!” she said
in a very posh accent, befitting their proximity to the Royal castle. “I’m Ellie!”

“I’m Owen,” he replied sheepishly.

“Owe-en,” she repeated slowly, looking at Ken, and pronouncing the syllables individually just as Clive had done earlier. Ken nodded for reasons that Owen couldn’t fathom, as if he had to confirm what Owen was saying to be truthful. “Owe-en,” she repeated, and then pointed at herself. “Ell-ee.”  Owen didn’t know how to respond to this apparent need to pronounce syllables so markedly, so he just stood there awkwardly.

“Yes, Owen,” Mrs Argyle
confirmed impatiently. “How are you, Ellie?”

“Celia!” she said, as if she had only noticed her.  “I’m brill, thanks. 
Such a surprise to see Ken this morning.” She turned to Clive. “And Clive!  You’re here too!”

“
Evidently,” he confirmed. His lack of enthusiasm didn’t seem to diminish Ellie’s.

“Same old Cl
ive, always tired!” she smiled. “Ken tells me you’ve been having a frightful time with a man in a hat?”

Mrs Argyle faced her brother.
“He caught up with Clive before us, along with a praetorian.”

“A praetorian?”
Owen asked.

“
Grandiose name that civilians in the Remarkables used to call themselves,” explained Ken. “Trilby is working with a praetorian?”

“I don’
t believe so,” Mrs Argyle said. “I got the impression they were acting independently of one another.”

“
And this one had several of the Metropolitan police force’s finest to back him up,” interjected Clive.

“
Really?” Ken said thoughtfully. “That’s unusual.”

“Not to mention another squad of goons, all dressed in black,” Clive added.

“I saw them too!” Ellie cried.

“In the
flesh or in your head?” Clive asked.

Ellie scowled at him.
“I saw them outside here last night. Victoria called the police and they drove away.” Owen presumed Victoria to be the red-haired woman.

“So
perhaps all three are unrelated,” Mrs Argyle said thoughtfully.

“Seems that way,” said Clive.
“Our friend in the suit was with the police, not the guys in black.”

“And he was with the police at your house,” Owen added, trying to be helpful.

“Yes,” Mrs Argyle agreed, tapping her teeth with the nail of her index finger thoughtfully.

Victoria
interrupted the brief silence with a slight clatter of a tea tray as she entered the garden.

“Let me help you with that,” Clive
offered, taking the tray from her and placing it on the table. He poured everyone a drink, and they helped themselves to the biscuits.

“So where do you think you are whisking my girl off to this time?”
Victoria enquired sternly.