The wedding party watched open-mouthed as the cultivator skidded to an untidy halt beside the fountain. The two women leapt off and rushed towards the white-ribboned Rolls-Royce. The older one opened the back door, bustled the younger inside, and leapt in after her.
The Rolls-Royce immediately burst into life, reversing, in a clatter of tin cans, away from the approaching Jaguar. The Jaguar suddenly swung right, away from the fountain, turning in a wide arc, searing through the carpet of lawns to head off the Roller if it tried to escape down the drive.
But the Rolls-Royce’s driver knew his stuff. Suddenly spinning his steering wheel, he shot across the gravel between the abandoned cultivator and the fountain.
The Jaguar, its driver realizing their quarry wasn’t making for the main gates, continued in the turning circle on which it was set, homing back towards the hotel, targeted to hit the Rolls-Royce broadsides.
The mouths of the wedding guests gaped further, and they tensed themselves for the impact.
Just at the second the smash seemed inevitable, the Rolls-Royce shot forward. Skating over the gravel on two wheels, it spun at a crazy angle before righting itself on the grass. Scoring deep furrows across the green, it sped towards the hotel gates.
The Jaguar had not had time to change course. It smashed heavily into the fountain. A stone cherub, surprised by the impact, fell on to the bonnet, bounced and smashed through the windscreen.
A second cherub, less completely dislodged, leant away from the fountain at a crazy angle. From the cornucopia held in its hands, water poured through the broken glass on to the heads of the two dazed men.
The hotel manager, drawn by the noise, came out to witness the devastation of his fountain and the ravaging of his lawns.
His jaw dropped even further than those of the wedding guests. Particularly when he caught sight of a Rolls-Royce, which trailed a cacophony of tin cans and had ‘Just Married, sprayed in foam across its back window, disappearing at high speed out of his hotel gates.
A scream of complaining metal drew attention back to the Jaguar. It screeched backwards, spraying gravel like a nail-bomb, howled back into forward gear, and hurtled off across the lawns in pursuit of the Rolls-Royce.
The bride turned to the bridegroom, and burst into tears. “This is the worst day of my life!” she wailed. “Isn’t it?”
“Yes,” said the bridegroom, playing safe.
∨ Mrs Pargeter’s Plot ∧
Thirty-One
The Rolls-Royce was a powerful beast, but it wasn’t built for speed to the same extent as the Jaguar. Blunt and Clickety Clark’s collision with the fountain had made a hell of a mess of the car’s bodywork, but didn’t seem to have affected the engine. As the two vehicles hurtled through country lanes, the gap between them narrowed inexorably.
“Where’re you making for, Gary?” Mrs Pargeter shouted from the back seat.
“Back to my place!”
“Why? Have you got staff there who can help us?”
“No,” Gary replied grimly. “I got shooters.”
“Shooters? But I thought you didn’t approve of –”
“I don’t as a rule. But then, as a rule, I’m not up against Blunt. No way he won’t have a gun on him.”
“He has!” Tammy Jacket wailed. “I seen it! He was about to take a potshot at us when we escaped on the tractor.”
“I knew it. I’ve got an old sawn-off back of my barn. That’ll even up the odds a bit.”
Mrs Pargeter pursed her lips. “You know I don’t approve of guns unless they’re absolutely unavoidable.”
“They’re unavoidable this time. I don’t fancy facing up to Blunt with only the natural charm of my personality to protect me.”
“My late husband always said,” Mrs Pargeter continued primly, “that those who live by the gun are extremely likely to die by the gun.”
“Seems reasonable to me,” the chauffeur shouted back. “Blunt’s lived by the gun all right, so he’ll only be getting his due.”
“Well, Gary, if there’s any way of avoiding violence…”
“Sure, sure, Mrs P. I’ll do me best. Hold on tight, we’re nearly there!”
The cottage loomed ahead like a jet-propelled chocolate box. The Jaguar was now so close behind the Rolls-Royce that Mrs Pargeter could almost count Blunt’s nasal hairs, when Gary suddenly swung the steering wheel right into his drive. He spun into the opposite lock, heading straight for the barn garage. Both sets of doors were open, so that the structure appeared like a bridge.
Just as they were steaming into the building, Gary caught sight of the banner flapping over the doorway. “What the hell…” he mouthed in disbelief.
Mrs Pargeter looked up, and managed to read the words blazoned across the white sheet before the car swept into the barn. With a sense of doom, she recognized the logo, and the inevitable legend:
WHAT’S THE FIRST THING TO DO WHEN YOU GET YOUR OWN FLAT?
RE-TIRE.
She just had time to register that Fossilface O’Donahue’s understanding of joke structure was still improving, when her attention was seized by a shriek of “Good heavens, look at that lot!” from Gary.
In the microsecond that they were inside the barn, she saw the high-heaped towers that filled the entire structure except for the narrow channel through which the Rolls-Royce sped. And she recognized that the huge piles were built up of brand-new car tyres. Fossilface O’Donahue was once again paying his dues, once again in what he thought was an appropriate fashion. In the past he’d once sabotaged one of Gary’s tyres; now the chauffeur had more tyres than he could ever possibly need. Oh yes, another triumph for the cock-eyed logic of Fossilface O’Donahue.
Gary slammed the brakes on the minute his Roller was in the maintenance yard, and reached for his door handle. “I’ll get the sawn-off and deal with the…”
His words trickled away at the sights and sounds emerging from the barn. The Jaguar, only metres behind them, had swung savagely into the narrow passageway.
Too savagely. A bumper had caught the base of one of the tyre towers, setting the whole edifice wobbling. That tower destabilized the others. A few random tyres toppled down, then little flurries of them fell; finally, in an avalanche of rubber, all the tyres in the barn collapsed inwards, burying the immobilized Jaguar under their combined weight.
“You know,” Mrs Pargeter observed, “I think, for the first time, one of Fossilface’s acts of ‘restitooshun’ has actually done someone some good.”
∨ Mrs Pargeter’s Plot ∧
Thirty-Two
Even with its shaving-foam inscription and wake of tin cans and toilet rolls, Gary’s Rolls-Royce still contrived to appear majestic as it processed over Vauxhall Bridge. The two ladies in the back were looking somewhat better than they had when leaving their former transport at the country house hotel. Gary’s new Roller was stocked for every eventuality. There was a supply of cosmetics and toiletries in the back pocket, and the two passengers had used these to repair their make-up and hair-styles (though in Tammy Jacket’s case, not a single hair of her lacquered helmet had shifted).
Amongst its other supplies, the Rolls-Royce also had a well-stocked drinks cabinet and Mrs Pargeter, once her appearance was restored to elegance, had immediately started pouring. As she concluded her call on the earphone, she was on her third vodka Campari, while Tammy Jacket kept pace with her in brandy and ginger ale.
“It’s all right, Truffler. We’re fine.”
“I still should’ve thought. Should’ve kept my eyes skinned for those two villains when I was leaving Gary’s place.” His voice, from the other end of the phone, was heavy with self-recrimination.