Ed stared at the envelope lying on the table before him. He’d been like it for a full five minutes, hands at his sides as though the thing was filled with ricin. It may as well have been, because Ed knew what it contained. The company’s logo was printed on its front.
“Aren’t you going to open it, Eddie?”
“And read what I already know?”
Ed looked at his wife sitting opposite him. The years of relentless toil showed in the lines on her face. He imagined she thought the same thing looking back at him. They weren’t wrong. And now it had come to this. Edward Clarke took the penknife from his pocket, slipped it into the top edge of the envelope, and slit it open. It wasn’t a thing you could do much anymore. Email meant things like letter openers had found their way to the glass fronts of antique and collectible dealer’s cabinets. It was a satisfying thing to do – a satisfying noise that the paper made as it succumbed to the blade. He closed his knife and put it back in his pocket before reaching inside for the folded letter. Jeanie watched him silently. The Parkmore Holdings UK bank logo was equally prominent at the top of the letter as it was on the envelope. Ed scanned the print, his face a blank mask that hid the anger inside.
“Yep,” was all he said as he put the letter down. Then he looked at his wife, the woman he had shared his life with working the land and livestock of Blackstones. Like his father and mother before him. Thought of all the good things that bonded them and the hardship they had often endured. She was the strongest woman he knew. The one who had given up her own personal dreams for their shared one. He studied her weather-worn face and in it, saw a new fragility. One her honesty could not conceal. One of uncertainty and fear of the future.
“It’s gone.”
Ed reached across the scrub top table, worn from generations of use, and held his wife’s hand. She couldn’t remember a time she’d ever seen him cry.
* * *
Robert Easton left the slick façade of the building behind him and headed for his favourite watering hole. He felt alive in this city. Its brashness matched his own. Tall, pin-sharp, overly confident. It was what you needed to be in his line of work. That was a given. That was understood. You had to be. He arrived at the bar behind his three closest buddies, two of whom worked at the same bank as him. The other, Lance, at a rival. He’d known Lance since prep school, and they’d always known what they wanted to do, even before university, and this professional rivalry had strengthened their bond. The rivalry and their love of a certain champagne, the pranks they played, the bikes they rode, the cars they drove and the women they chased.
“Good week?” Lance enquired.
“Fantastic, buddy. Landed a killer deal, with icing. Been working on it for months,” Robert said.
“What sort of icing?”
Robert glanced around; the place was heaving. “I’ll tell you another time.” He nodded at his best friend. Lance’s face said ‘Really?’ but he didn’t vocalise it. He understood.
“Here, old chap.”
Robert turned his attention to Archie, who held out a glass of champagne.
“I’ve heard rumour of a little dalliance between you and someone at work.”
“Oh yes?”
“Is it true?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Meaning it obviously is then.”
Robert grinned, “Absolutely not.”
“Really?”
“Don’t be a dick, Archie,” Benedict chided his friend, “Of course it’s true. But she’s married, so it stays a rumour.”
The four men guffawed loudly, then knocked back their drinks.
“Skiing this season?” Archie continued.
“Of course. Off to Verbier. I thought I’d mentioned it already.”
“With that Allegra from mergers?”
Robert winked and took a sip from his glass.
“Listen, chaps, skiing aside, I want to plan another trip for the Road Kings next year. I say we make a week of it. Cotswolds. Superb terrain.”
“Great idea,” said Lance, “haven’t done that part of the world for yonks. Shall we do March sometime?”
“Sounds like a plan. March should be good for me,” said Archie.
“Me too.” Ben was looking at his Google calendar. “Tail end would be good.”
“Great, I’ll get it planned. I know just the place. If it’s available.” Robert took a sip from his glass.
“Are we still on for the weekend next month and the one in October?”
“Yes, Ben, looking forward to them.”
More Deutz was ordered, and the four men discussed their plans in greater detail before leaving. The eye-watering bar bill was customarily put on their tab.
* * *
After the loss of the farm, Ed and Jeanie Clarke moved away. At the request of Jeanie’s sister, they settled in with her and her husband on their farm in Shropshire. Ed could never get his head around the loss of his own because, in his eyes, it was unnecessary. The farm was and would always be, viable. It was stolen from him, he would say. Often. The repetition of which eventually grated on the nerves of his in-laws. He couldn’t help it but realised it must have been wearing. They wanted to help him through it. To help Jeanie through it. As much as their good intentions were appreciated, it could never belie the loss. What was to Eddie, the theft.
Christmas Eve descended on Eddie’s depression like a wedged trapdoor. Jeanie had neither the strength nor reserve of empathy to dislodge it. She tried; they all did, but Eddie was lost in his spiral. They’d all hoped for better, that Eddie would pull out of it, but on Christmas morning, Jeanie woke to find him already out of bed. That in itself wasn’t unusual, he was a farmer, what was unusual was the complete lack of noise from the rest of the house. Eddie was never the quietest man once he’d woken up. Jeanie donned her dressing gown and went downstairs. On the kitchen table was a note. She approached it, trepidation already tying a knot in her stomach, and picked it up, memories returning of the way her husband had looked at the envelope from the bank, all those months ago in their kitchen at Blackstones. This one bore no logo or postal mark however, simply her name, in handwriting she recognised immediately. Pulling the unsealed flap open, Jeanie removed the note. It was brief. Jeanie, I can’t do this anymore, please forgive me. Eddie. A sensation of dread began creeping up on her. She put the note down slowly and looked out the window to the Landy in the yard. Only to discover it wasn’t there.
The Land Rover was found later that afternoon at Blackstones Farm. As was Eddie, hanging from an oak beam in the main barn, an old crate laying on its side beneath his still form.
* * *
March started cold and bleak, the winter hesitant to lose its grip. By the end, it had relented and handed the baton to spring. The bike tour had come around eight months after that discussion in the bar. March was good. Early enough that the tourist season hadn’t kicked off properly, so the roads were less busy.
The Road Kings had rented a large cottage in Kingham and would travel up by train, first class, Robert having organised a big SUV rental to be collected at the station. Why waste time negotiating the journey from London in their own? The GWR was at least twenty-five minutes quicker. Their bikes and equipment would be shipped up by van. As would most of their luggage.
The plan was to meet up in the Mad Bishop at Paddington, to acquire some pre-journey lubrication. Robert was the last to arrive. On his way into the station, scrolling through his mobile, he almost tripped over one of the many homeless, propped up against a wall with an old sleeping bag draped over his legs. He stopped and glanced at the man who, despite his haggard, weather-worn face, looked back with dark eyes, alive with energy. Black, inquisitorial eyes, which unsettled Robert. He moved on quickly, not looking back, as he did when he avoided London’s abundant rough sleepers.
Forty-five minutes into the journey, Robert slipped out of his seat. On his way down the carriage to the toilet, he exchanged glances with a man in the end row, who had just turned his head from looking out the window. Robert thought nothing of it until he was relieving himself in the loo. The man looked familiar, but he couldn’t place him. As he zipped up, he realised who it was. But that would surely be unlikely. On leaving the toilet he would attempt, as casually as possible, to take another look at him. When he went back into the carriage, the man had gone. Odd, Robert thought. He never mentioned it to his friends.
* * *
Jeanie Clarke had struggled after Eddie’s suicide. The sheer horror of seeing a man brought literally to the end of his tether, by forces beyond his control, didn’t crystallise until after his death. Living through it never allowed her the leisure of analysing it. As the months wore on, her fragility meandered through a gamut of emotions before hardening off into bitterness at the complete waste of a life. The loss of her husband. No – the sacrifice of her husband – to the corporate machine. Not that she could elucidate that outwardly to her sister or brother-in-law, or her remaining friends, she didn’t have the right words. Eddie had been crushed. Killed.
On March 28th, while alone in the Shropshire farmhouse, she had what she thought was a seizure. It had never happened to her before. An uncomfortable paralysis overcame her as she sat watching the television. The programme blurred away to a fuzzy, blank screen. Jeanie’s breathing slowed and shallowed as she watched, motionless and stiff. On the screen, as though written by someone inside the television, scratchy handwriting appeared.
It was a message from Eddie.
‘Jeanie, I need you to do something.’
As each line appeared, then faded, it was replaced with another.
‘Remember that idea we had, for the farm, for the business?
Jeanie watched, incredulous but strangely unafraid.
‘The thing that was taken away from us?’
As the message continued, and with it the realisation that what appeared on the screen, in his handwriting, could be nothing else but instructions from her dead husband, a resolve surged through Jeanie. As improbable as the request might sound, as unbelievable as it was, Eddie’s wife would do as he asked.
* * *
The cottage was newly renovated. Bespoke. Charming. And was owned by someone known intimately to Robert, the global head of PR for a pharmaceutical giant. Despite the fact she was ten years his senior, and his penchant was for what he described as ‘gym bunnies’, he had a massive crush on her. That was part of the attraction, he’d confessed to Lance one day. Her being cougar to his toy boy. She strung him along; it suited her as a vehicle in her relationship with her husband. Ammunition, she called it. Neither she nor Robert ever admitted to anything inappropriate. Her husband knew of course. He was doing the same thing.
“Hare or Vixen tonight, chaps?” Robert asked the three other men in the lounge after they’d finished showering and changing.
“We can walk to the Hare,” said Ben, as he studied his phone.
“True, but it’s only a cab ride to the Vixen,” said Archie.
“I don’t mind either way, chaps.”
“Toss for it,” said Lance, producing a coin from his pocket.
The Hare won. The four men were loud all evening, but the management didn’t seem to mind, it was mostly good-natured banter. And, in their eyes, the hefty bill at the end was recompense for the mild inconvenience of their sometimes inappropriate behaviour. Some of the bar staff saw it differently, but bar staff were cheap, and easily replaced. At some point in the evening, a man walked in as Robert was coming back from the toilet. He brushed past him on his way to the bar. Robert didn’t notice his face, but he caught the odd aroma that came off him. A sticky, meaty smell, not offensive unless you were a vegetarian. He put it down to the man’s trade perhaps, it was farming country after all. Robert rejoined his friends at the table; the man continued to the bar. Later, during a lull in their conversation, Robert happened to casually sweep the pub, checking its customers, looking for any interesting groups of women. His eyes settled on the man, sitting alone at the bar. And it was here that they stopped, focusing in like the crosshair on a scope. The man was staring right back at him, unabashed, and the breath caught in Robert’s throat. Like black laser beams, the man’s eyes scythed through the pub seeking out their target. The face they were illuminating was the very same as the homeless guy at Paddington. What the fu..? Robert’s thought trailed off. Coincidence? A bizarre trick of the light was the only possible explanation. Yes, most likely… but the vibes that came off the man were the same. Even from this distance. He got up and made his way silently to the bar, leaving his friends baffled. As he navigated around another table, a group of people came in, crossing his path and blocking his view. When he reached the bar, the stranger had gone, only the faintest whiff of his presence lingering in the air. Robert looked around hoping to catch sight of him. There was no trace. The barman was serving someone next to him, eyes watching the amber liquid dispensing from the tap.
“Excuse me, did you see where the chap sitting here went?”
The barman looked up, feigning politeness, “No, sorry,” then went about his business again.
Robert felt a vibration in his chest and removed his phone from his jacket.
Same again, Bobby, old chap. Ask how long that food is going to be as well.
The message was from Lance. He looked over at the table. Ben was standing up and looking back, his arms stretched up in a Y. Robert couldn’t help but grin. Plank. He turned back to the bar and did as he was asked.
* * *
Robert was up first in the morning; he had a surprise for his friends. Draped over the backs of four dining chairs were new jerseys. Each bespoke.
Of the three friends, Lance was down first. He greeted Robert and then noticed the vivid orange jerseys.
“What are these, old chap?” he said, reaching for one of them.
“Not that one. Yours is there.” Robert said, pointing to its neighbour.
Lance picked it up and studied the back, a broad grin spreading on his face.
“You’ve outdone yourself this time, Bobby.”
He held it up to better see both sides. On the back, emblazoned across the top, was their team name: ROAD KINGS. Underneath was his nickname, LANKY. On the front, the logo of his bank as the imagined sponsor. Robert had gone to the trouble to make it unique to him. A one-off jersey for an imagined road race superstar. Lance looked at his friend who held up his own shirt. On the front, the logo of Parkmore Holdings UK. BOBBY printed on the reverse.
“Cool, eh?”
Lance checked the size of his shirt. Perfect. “Fuck me, Bobby, beyond cool, spot on.”
Ben and Archie appeared minutes later. Each in turn overjoyed with their new kit. Like kids at the start of the football season when their father has secretly bought replica shirts. Not the rip-off one from the market but the real one from the club’s website. The four men fuelled up on breakfast while Robert explained the route he’d planned. It would be mostly back roads up through to Campden. Short break, then down to Moreton for another short break before heading back to Kingham. The route was winding and hilly. It would be a decent enough test for the first day, mellow, a kick start to the week.
Kitted out, the four riders gathered outside and checked their bikes. It was mild for March, even for the tail end, their weather apps promised 13 Celsius. They carried only the basics in their jersey pockets. Final checks complete they faced each other, arms outstretched, fists clenched and touching.
“Kings of the road,” said Robert.
“Kings of the road,” came back the unison reply.
That was the assumption they took with them while riding. Their claim. The winding lanes that beckoned were designed for their personal use. A themed country escape of quaint, honeyed stone cottages, gastro pubs and lifestyle emporiums. Their playground.
The ride up to Campden was incident-free. They took it in turns to lead and stopped for a short break. Robert had planned a different route for the return leg. A race to the green at Draycott before the climb up Dorn Hill. Then the descent down into Moreton for lunch. Traffic was light, local stuff, but it never bothered them anyway. The pack kept close for the first ten minutes before Robert made a break. Lance followed. Ben and Archie weren’t that bothered. As the road opened up serpentine on the small ridge between villages, Robert spied a farm to his left. Shafts of sunlight hit the buildings in patches through the clouds. It looked sleepy, he thought. Disturbed only by the wheeling of rooks above it. The road twisted and undulated and the farm disappeared behind tree and hedge cover. Robert glanced back over his shoulder to see clear road. Lanky couldn’t be far behind. What he didn’t see in that moment was the tractor pulling out of a lane to his left. He passed it without realising, his vision turned once more to the bend and series of potholes ahead.
Lanky couldn’t avoid it, needing to brake sharply to avoid colliding with the mammoth vehicle. It blocked the road as it manoeuvred its trailer behind. It wasn’t long before Ben and Archie caught up. The three of them weaved in slow motion while the vehicles straightened and crawled up the road, jettisoning clods of mud as they went.
“For fuck’s sake!” Archie shouted at the massive vehicles navigating the road. Passing them was hampered not only by the mud popping off, but also by the narrow gap between them and the hedgerow. They would need to wait out the bend at least.
Up ahead, the road straightened out enough that the farm came into view again. But what interested Robert much more was the large billboard erected at the entrance to it. He knew what it was immediately. It was one of the reasons he’d chosen this particular route. ‘Land acquired – coming soon – Blackstones Park – homes of distinction’. He turned unthinking into the lane, then sat up and fished his phone from his back pocket. Robert was adept at riding hands-free and texting. He was halfway up the lane, fingers on his phone, when a noise from the hedgerow made him look up. Two pheasants burst out of the bushes, one crashing into his front wheel, the other aimed straight for his head. He ducked, but it was too late, and the impact of the birds sent him careening wildly until he hit the thin, wire fence opposite. The section attached to a post that was due for repair many months before. It snapped at the base causing him, his phone, and his bike to somersault through the air, down the short embankment into the ditch. After minutes of cursing in a twisted heap, Robert detached himself from the bike. He had sustained some minor injuries, cuts, no breaks mercifully, but his right wrist and elbow hurt like hell. He scanned the ground for his phone. It could be anywhere in a twenty-foot radius, including in the ditch. “Fuck!” he shouted. Then he checked his bike over. The front tyre had been torn on the wire fence. “FUCK!!” Louder this time. The pheasants in the field turned, momentarily startled, but then went on pecking at the ground, the loud stranger not appearing a threat.
Robert continued to scout around in vain for his mobile but eventually had to give it up as a lost cause. After screaming more profanities in the direction of the birds in the field, he made his way up the small incline, through the damaged fence and onto the lane. It was a fifty-fifty split, to the road or to the farm. He could go to the road and wait around – try to get a lift. Then something caught his eye near the farm. A movement between two buildings. It appeared as though someone was looking over at him. The figure raised its arm. Security guard was Robert’s initial thought, he must have a phone. His decision was made and he began to walk towards the buildings.
A couple of minutes later, he came to the first barn. Open-ended and empty, a steel superstructure with corrugated sides and roof. Remnants of its former use discarded in wind-blown scraps on the ground. Across from this building another more substantial, single-storey, brick built. Further up the broken concrete roadway were others; the farmhouse at the end of the road. All signs of life consigned to memory. Robert had never been in a place that felt so desolate and abandoned. The person he’d seen before obviously hadn’t waited around for him. From where he stood, there was no sign of a portacabin for a security guard or site office of any kind. Perhaps they use one of the buildings, Robert thought, as he approached the one to his left. The door had seen better days but it opened, the hinges squealing as it did so. It must have been used for animals of some kind. Having no idea about farming he didn’t know what sort. The smell and the oppressive gloom were enough for him to leave quickly. As he came out, he noticed the man again, approaching the building further up.
Is he playing some kind of game? “Hey!” Robert shouted.
The man turned and looked at Robert for the briefest moment as he placed his hand on the door. In that momentary exchange, Robert froze in disbelief. The eyes. The face. Surely to God, it couldn’t be? The man silently entered the building. Robert reacted two seconds later by jogging over, as best he could in his cycle shoes. Above the door, a hand-painted sign read OFFICE. He entered into a dimly lit space, fully expecting to see the man waiting there. The place clearly used to be a farm shop, the sense of abandonment palpable inside. Faded signs still advertising produce long since disappeared. He stood, contemplating the scene, unaware of the figure that loomed up behind him. Then all was pain and blackness as he sensed the ground rushing up to meet him.
* * *
“Where is he, then?” Archie said, after five minutes of waiting around at the small green.
“It has to be here,” Ben said, gesturing at the space in front of him. “I don’t imagine there’s more than one green in a village this small.” Ben studied his watch, as though it might offer up an explanation.
“Can you look him up on your phone, Lanky? On that tracking app?” Archie turned to see Lance had already fished his mobile from his jersey pocket. Always one step ahead.
Lance poked at his screen, then studied it. “It’s saying he’s about a mile back where we came from. Down a lane that leads to a farm.” He looked up at the other two. “Why would he be there?” He checked his phone again. “He’s not moving though.”
Ben and Archie shrugged. Then looked peeved.
“For fuck’s sake,” Ben said, “I suppose we should go back, in case there’s something wrong.”
“Agreed. It’s only a few minutes.” Lance said as he pocketed his phone.
The three men headed back out of the small village towards Robert’s phone signal. At the sign erected by the entrance to Blackstones, they all looked up. Then at each other. Each shared the same thought.
“Why would he come down here?” Archie ventured.
“I may have an idea, actually.” The cogs were whirring in Lance’s head. “Something he mentioned to me last year.”
“What’s that, old bean?”
“Something about a deal he was working on. It may have absolutely nothing to do with it, of course. You know how secretive Bobby can be.”
The men rode slowly up the lane, Lance in the middle, Ben and Archie on either side and as close to the edges as the worn surface would allow. About halfway up, Ben saw the break in the fence. He stopped and looked down towards the ditch, then raised his hand.
“Hold up, chaps.”
* * *
Robert eventually woke to a head engulfed in pain and an uncomfortable claustrophobic sensation. He tried to raise his hand and found it impossible. As he slowly re-entered the here and now, he realised he was bound and seated. The space around him was different to the one he last remembered. Larger. Colder. Dominated by a cloying acrid stench. A figure loomed out of the dimness in front of him, then he was introduced to a bucketful of cold water. The shock took his breath away and he gasped, sucking in a damp lungful of air. It brought him fully awake and relieved him of his headache. Almost his bladder, too. The face of his captor was lost in shadow to the spaces in the overhead lights. It remained that way while he spoke.
“I’ve been waiting for you, Mr Easton.”
“What? How do you know me? And why the hell am I tied up like this?”
“Oh, I know who you are, Robert. But you wouldn’t know me. Even if I were to show you my face.”
“Who are you? What do you want from me? Money, is it? I can give you money.”
Robert struggled against the bindings while he spoke. It was useless. Whoever his captor was, he was expert at tying knots.
“Yes, I know you have money, Robert. And connections. It’s how you connived to buy this place, isn’t it?”
“What! I don’t know what you’re talking about. What do you mean, connived? You can’t possibly know anything about that deal. Unless… Okay, it’s you, isn’t it, Lance? This is one of your elaborate pranks, isn’t it? Look, I understand you’re peeved I never discussed it with you. You know how tricky it was – you know I couldn’t make it public.” Robert waited for the figure in front of him to respond. “Come on, Lanky, you’ve had your fun, be a decent chap and untie me.”
The stranger approached so that his face exited the shadows. In the weak light, he saw the man’s head was covered with a filthy sackcloth mask. Rudimentary holes had been cut, that exposed the vaguest suggestion of eyes.
“Jesus, Lanky, where the hell did you get that mask from!”
“I think you may have me confused with someone else, Robert.”
The man moved to his left and reached for something in the half-light. He returned, holding a small box in his hand. Trailing upwards into the gloom was a cable.
“But I can assure you, Robert, you will soon come to understand who I am.”
Robert heard the sound of electric machinery starting. It took seconds before he felt his bindings tighten and then the sensation of lifting out of his chair. At this point, he still wanted to believe Lance was playing an elaborate prank on him. One borne out of some petty jealousy he hadn’t been cut in on a deal he felt privileged to. His friend had some dark spots, but he never imagined he’d go this far. And where were Ben and Archie?
“Come on, Lanky, please stop it now. Let’s talk about this!”
The stranger in the mask said nothing. Robert felt constriction as he was hoisted up in the air, and the nausea of fear began to gnaw at his stomach. It might not be Lance at all. So where did that leave him?
“Please, whoever you are, let’s talk about this. Let me down and we can discuss this properly. What do you say?”
The hoist whirred and clunked as Robert started to move, suspended four feet from the ground. His captor walked silently beside him, holding the controls. Silence encouraged the fear to bloom and the gnawing in his stomach to increase. Robert was, for the first time in his life, entirely helpless. Even at school, under the control of his tutors, he had never been at the full mercy of someone else. There was always back-up, always the understanding of what privilege bought with the fees. Now, everything he understood about control had been turned on its head. He was alone and at the mercy of someone else, whose motives he was unaware of.
“Please talk to me. Tell me what you want. I’ll give you whatever you need. I’ve got money and connections, I can help you.”
The hoist stopped and the stranger looked up at him.
“I already have what I want. It’s too late for anything else.”
The hoist started to move again, causing Robert to sway gently as he travelled in the gloom. Around him was the forsaken space of a building, the purpose of which he was unsure. His gnawing fear began to manifest itself deeper. Sweat bloomed and cooled, chilling his thinly covered body. Ugly thoughts blossomed from the scenarios that played in his head.
“Please, whoever you are, we can work this out. If you would only tell me what I’ve done to you, who you are. Please talk to me.”
Robert still held out that it could be Lance after all. His best friend, going too far in a crazy prank. Please let it be Lanky, the mantra he silently repeated. But the masked figure walked quietly beside him, ignoring his silent pleas as much as the ones he vocalised. They came to a stop, and the man produced a pole with a loop at the end. He must have been carrying it all the time, thought Robert. He watched as the man let go of the controller and fed the loop up over his dangling feet to his midriff. Then he tightened it. Now his captor had full control over Robert’s movement. Below his feet, Robert noticed what looked like the end of a metal table. He couldn’t be sure. When he returned his gaze to the man, he watched him raise his hand to the mask, clinging on even now to the hope it would be Lance’s face beneath the filthy rag. As he pulled it off and looked directly into Robert’s eyes, the world seemed to rush in, pummelling him with the toxic air. Those eyes, once only almost black, had lost any vestige of humanity and become shiny black beads of onyx implanted into the grey face. Robert’s terror was complete when the man began to speak. As he did, his face seemed to waver, like a bad television signal fading in and out of focus.
“My name is Ed Clarke.”
“You! How can you be here and in all those other places I’ve seen you? It’s impossible. Who the hell are you, and what do you want from me?”
“Does my name mean anything to you?” Ed continued, his voice flat and steady.
“What? No. Should it?”
Robert knew he’d chosen the wrong answer as soon as it passed his lips. The look on the man’s face said as much. Disappointed, more than angry. Rankled.
“For a man who requires a good memory to make his living, I think yours is lacking. Do the maths, where are you?”
Robert’s mental cogs whirred into overdrive. Despite the fact that the man had been haunting him all day, impossibly so, he would also need in-depth knowledge of what he did for a living. Aside from the director of the property developer who’d purchased Blackstones with his help, there really was no one else. Unless… of course… you included the owner of the farm.
Edward Clarke. Eddie. Ed.
The penny dropped on a name he’d let slip from memory, a name he really should have remembered. It was one connected with a business transaction. One entirely disconnected from a face. To an actual human being. As his eyes widened on the figure before him, the sinking realisation multiplied his fear. Edward Clarke began to flicker again, moving weirdly in and out of focus.
“I knew you’d get there.” Eddie pulled the control to him again, and Robert felt the hoist move. He went backwards, ascending at the same time. Below him, he saw the dull metal top of the long table. Unable to turn and see where he was going because of the loop around his body, unable to see clearly in the diminishing overhead light, Robert began to panic.
“Please. Please. I’m sorry. Let’s talk about it. I’ll give you whatever you want, whatever you need. I can compensate you. For your loss. We can make a deal. What do you say?”
Robert stopped rambling when the hoist came to a stop. He was eight feet off the floor. Below him yawned a wide dark space. Funnel-like. Eddie moved briefly out of his sightline, then returned holding a rope. One end was looped. The other looked to have a large piece of wood attached to it. Eddie began to move the loop towards his legs. Robert began to squirm, attempting to stop him. What happened next, he was entirely unready for. Eddie grabbed the pole dangling loosely from Robert’s waist and pushed something at the end of it. A surge of electricity charged through his damp body, making him convulse in pain. It lasted for a few seconds. When it stopped and he hung limply on his rope, Eddie threaded the loop around his ankles and let the heavy wooden counterweight drop into the hopper. The weight of it pulled Robert straight. Held him in place.
“It’s too late for me, Robert. I’ve already moved on.” Eddie looked up at the man suspended above him. The farmer’s face was serene in the dimness, solid then blurry. “But for you, Robert, your time has come to make amends. From being a taker to becoming a giver. It is time, Robert, to reverse the natural order of things in your world. To truly give back something of yourself.”
“Please, I beg you, please stop this.”
“Do you see me, Robert?”
“Yes. I can see you.”
“No. That is not what I asked.” Eddie flickered in and out of focus like an old black-and-white television.
“Do you see me?” Eddie began to fade into the dull grey background.
“No, I can’t. I can’t see you.” Robert was almost whimpering.
“You never did, Robert. That was always the problem. You never really did see me.” The disembodied voice hovered in the stillness of the gloom. Right before the unmistakable sound of machinery whirring into life. And the sound of the heavy wooden weight, breaking as it caught in the grinding teeth of the machine below.
* * *
“Look down there.” Ben pointed through the fence at the bike near the ditch. Lance dismounted and brushed past him, descending awkwardly down the short slope. He noted the ripped tyre and the complete lack of his friend. Fishing out his mobile, he called Robert’s number. Nothing happened. He checked the signal, ‘no service’, of course. Lance used his tracking app again.
“Come and help me look, guys, Bobby’s phone is around here somewhere.”
Ben and Archie went down and started prodding through the undergrowth.
“It could have landed in the ditch of course,” said Archie.
“Thanks for stating the obvious. If we fan out from the bike it will be more logical.”
They did so and after ten minutes Ben located it, some twenty feet away from the bike. On its side in a shallow groove of soil. Lance relieved him of it and checked it over. It had escaped unscathed. He wiped it as best he could on his Lycra jersey, then began punching in a series of numbers.
“Doesn’t Bobby use face recognition?” Archie ventured.
Lance gave him a withering look before continuing. “Yes, but this isn’t Face Off.” A few seconds later, “Bingo.”
“How did you do that?”
“I just punched in the last six digits of some of his bank accounts.”
“What!”
“It’s mutual, don’t worry, just in case,” Lance gestured at the bike on the ground, “And look.” Lance scrolled through calls and message apps. He found an unfinished one, just about the time the accident must have occurred. Then looked up at his friends. “No massive help – he was messaging us about coming down here to the farm. Then whatever happened cut it short.”
In the distance, they heard the metallic rasping of pheasants in the field. Lance wheeled Robert’s bike up onto the lane, leaving it propped against a post. The three men mounted up again and headed to the farm. They stopped and dismounted at the dilapidated open barn.
“It’s kind of creepy.”
“Sure is, Archie,” replied Ben. “Like some post-apocalyptic film set.”
From where they stood, they could see most of the farm buildings. They had all, with the exception of the open barn and another smaller version further along, been boarded up. Stencilled in black spray paint on the shuttering, the ominous warning from TOTAL SECURITY SERVICES: These premises are regularly patrolled. We never fail to prosecute.
“It’s probably bullshit. I imagine they turn up once a week at best,” said Ben.
The three men murmured in agreement and continued to explore. Fifteen minutes later, as they returned none the wiser to their bikes, they watched a van approaching the farm. It pulled up beside them. Black and silver liveried with the TSS shield logo, it could be nothing else than a security company vehicle. The men stood patiently while the burly, if somewhat overweight, driver emerged.
“Hello, gentlemen. You don’t look like the usual urchins I find here.” With quick, professional eyes, he scanned first them, up and down, and then their bikes, propped up against the barn. Then he pointed back down the lane. “That bike leaning up against the post. One of yours?”
“Yes. Well, it belongs to our friend, Bobby, but we can’t find him,” Lance said.
“How come, are you playing hide and seek? I’m good at finding people.”
“No, but thanks for the offer. Bobby was way out in front of us on the road and turned into here. We didn’t know. He was messaging us when he just seemed to have disappeared.”
“He could have gone to the road and got a lift.”
“It wouldn’t be like him to leave his bike in the ditch though.”
“Easier to get a lift without it.”
“Or leave his phone on the ground,” said Archie.
“That’s true. You found it then?”
“Yes, where he crashed.”
“Was it difficult to find?”
“A bit, not massively. Although there were three of us.”
“But we weren’t shaken up like Bobby probably was,” Lance said.
“Do you want me to help you have another look?” The security guard stood with his hands on his utility belt, feet slightly apart. In all essence the man for the job, either ex-military or police.
“Would you mind? In case we’ve missed something,” replied Archie.
The four men did another fruitless search. The secured buildings remained padlocked, the open ones still empty, the immediate area surrounding the farmyard devoid of life. They agreed that Robert must have got a lift and somehow missed them on the road going in the other direction. The security guard kindly took Robert’s bike to his office on a local trading estate. They could collect it in their car when they found him.
But Robert never turned up that day. So, the police were called, and a missing person report was filed.
He never turned up the next day either.
The Road Kings were missing their crown prince, so they decided to cut their break short and return home. The police put the case in motion as best they could, having no clue or evidence to indicate where he had gone. They did their own, fruitless search. The only thing they discovered at the farm was a broken padlock.
* * *
A week passed, and the shock of the disappearance of Robert had acclimated to one of loss for the Road Kings. Lance was particularly affected. So much so that he nearly bungled a deal that should have been straightforward. Ben and Archie plodded through their work like zombies. That was until new revelations began to emerge, like maggots from overturned roadkill. Revelations about Robert’s shadier dealings. Spurious allegations he would have countered. But he wasn’t around to spin, to deny or otherwise. Rumours began to emerge that Robert had set it all up and disappeared with a vast fortune to an offshore paradise. “All bollocks,” Lance retorted when challenged. “Ludicrous”.
It was at the end of the second week, just before lunch, that they arrived, delivered without ceremony by a middle-aged woman with a tired, lined face. Ever busy with updating her social media when not answering the phone, the receptionist was glad to receive them, even though she never ate pies; heaven forbid pastry should enter her honed body. But still, when she had a peek in the box, the smell was inescapably delicious. A message went around the office that enough pies had been delivered for most of them. The box would remain in reception for anyone interested in grabbing one. Attached to the box was a note, directed to Robert, thanking him for helping to set up the company: Clarke’s – traditional hand-baked goods. The receptionist was almost moved reading it.
Ben called Lance, and the remaining Road Kings met outside. None of them had heard about the Clarke’s venture. It remained a mystery, but they toasted the memory of their friend, wherever he may be. This particular April day, it was warm enough to sit out on one of the benches in the plaza in front of the office. They each studied the pies, inhaling the glorious aroma before tucking in and commenting on how amazing they tasted. It was when they got to the middle of the pies that their reactions changed. Archie, being the greediest, got there first. As he took a bite, and pulled the pie away from his mouth, something flopped onto his chin. It was a shred of thin, bright orange fabric. And as he was looking at it, the same thing happened to Lance.
The piece Lance studied, before he spat out his remaining mouthful of meat, carried the unmistakable portion of a printed bank logo.