"Nice room," I said. "Did you choose the colours?" No answer, just a contemptuous stare.
"I, er, I saw your painting." I gestured towards the outer room. "It's good, one of your best. But surely you're not going to try to heist the Mona Lisa, are you?"
He sniggered. "No. While I am confident I can reproduce Leonardo's masterpiece, he unfortunately used inferior materials. I am unable to do justice to the surface cracks that it is covered with. The picture is just a little present for the wife of a friend. She says it's her favourite painting."
"Good," I replied, nodding my approval. "Good. I'm sure she'll appreciate it. Tell me, what's her second favourite: the white horses galloping through the waves, or the Burmese lady with the green face?"
"You're a sarcastic bastard," he hissed. "You always were. But we won't have to put up with you for much longer."
"Why? What are you going to do?" I asked. It seemed a reasonable question. I was genuinely interested.
"You'll find out."
"I'd never have thought of you as a killer, Rudi," I told him.
"I'm not'
"Aren't you? What about old Jamie?"
"Who's old Jamie?"
"You remember. The tramp whose body we found in your cottage. We've been looking for you for his murder."
Fear flickered across his face for a moment. The gun wavered alarmingly. "I didn't kill him," he hissed. "He… died."
"Did he? And what did you do to help the process? Give him a litre of Bell's and tell him to get it down? It amounts to the same thing in my book."
His eyes flashed up towards the TV monitor and he smiled. "Fortunately, Priest, your book is not the one we're working from."
I followed his gaze. The big door was open and the Rolls was coming through. As it slid shut again Truscott said: "Get up, it's time to go." He pointed towards the exit. "Walk slowly, and don't try anything."
I walked slowly. Very slowly. I was hoping he'd come up close behind me, but he was wary.
"Faster!" he snapped.
We were approaching the painting, which was angled away from us, towards the outer door. I glanced back at him and said: "Yes, it's a really nice picture." We'd reached it now. I went on: "It needed a few small alterations, though, so I made them for you. I hope you don't mind."
I grabbed the top of the easel and turned it so he could appreciate my handiwork. With the lights on it wasn't La Gioconda any more; it was Barbara Cartland, after being ravished by the Chipping Sodbury chapter of Hell's Angels.
His face contorted in horror: "You bastard!" he screamed.
One second later the picture, with easel still attached, hit him in the mouth and I was out through the door.
Cakebread was opening the boot of the Rolls. He looked up when he heard the commotion and his natural look of self-satisfaction turned to panic when he saw me. I was down the stairs in three leaps and already running when my feet hit the ground. Truscott fired. The bullet ricocheted off the concrete in front of me, nearly hitting Cakebread.
"Three seconds, dear God," I prayed. "Three seconds, that's all I ask, with my hands round his throat."
I nearly made it. With five yards to go Cakebread delved into the boot and spun in my direction. I found myself charging towards the pitiless black orifices of a sawn-off shotgun.
Plan B. It wasn't much, but it was all I had. I executed a body-swerve and change of direction that would have graced any football field in the world, and headed for the door. But you can't outrun a twelve-bore.
The noise, the pain and the impact all hit me at once. The blast caught me in the right side, spinning me round. My legs tangled and I went down. The only thought in my head was 'keep moving'. I rolled over and over. Then I was scrabbling forward on my hands and knees and finally on my feet again. I thumbed the door catch with my free hand the one that wasn't holding my guts in yanked it open and spilled out on to the welcoming pavement.
Penny Throstle owns a craft shop in the new riverside development at Oldfield. She sells rugs and blankets that she weaves herself on a Victorian floor loom, purchased when the company that had hitherto owned it fell victim to advancing technology and cheap imports. She was given the option to buy the three similar ones in the mill at the same knockdown price, so she took those, too. The intention was to use them for spares, or restore them for sale to another small operator.
Fortunately she did neither, and all four are now in use.
The rugs are usually hung on walls as decoration, being far too expensive to walk on or throw over the bed. Her designs come from all around the world, as well as the original ones she develops herself. Ms Throstle was doing quite nicely, thank you, until she made a rug for Mr. Rahkshan. Now she is doing very well indeed.
Mr. Rahkshan is a silversmith, and owns the shop next door. He is a Muslim. One day, in a period when Ms Throstle was beguiled by the geometric patterns of Islamic art and producing beautiful works under its heady influence, she made Mr. Rahkshan a prayer mat. Her motives were not purely spiritual she fancied him madly. The design was based on five lines, radiating from a point halfway along one side. Mr.
Rahkshan was captivated when she explained how it worked. You simply placed the mat on the floor, with the appropriate line pointing in the direction of the sun; then, as you knelt on the mat, you were automatically facing towards Mecca.
It was only accurate, of course, when within a few hundred miles of Oldfield. The design would have to be modified for use in other parts of the world. Mr. Rahkshan proudly showed the mat to his friends. As well as having direction-finding capabilities it was also a thing of beauty, for Ms Throstle had invested her best efforts, plus a few prayers of her own, in it. One week later he gave her a firm order for twenty similar mats, at an extremely agreeable price, with promises of more to follow.
A month later later they became partners alas, only for business purposes went mail-order and put the other looms into use. They were inundated.
"The secret of a good reputation," Mr. Rahkshan would say, 'is to produce a good-quality article and deliver it on time. Then you can charge what you want," and he would give his tinkling laugh that entranced Ms Throstle. The trouble was, they had received so many orders they might have difficulty in achieving the second premise.
Simply packing all the rugs for posting was a gargantuan undertaking.
Fortunately a little factory that made cardboard cartons came to the rescue. They were in Welton, joined on to the back of ABC House, domicile of Aubrey Cakebread.
Business for them was desperate; they were rapidly coming unstuck at the flaps. When Mr. Rahkshan asked them to make boxes for the mats, they gladly offered to pack, address and post them, at a small extra cost. It was a satisfactory arrangement all round. The grateful staff worked all weekend to process the latest order. They finished it late Sunday afternoon, and had just left the factory and were walking down the cobbled lane alongside ABC House, on their way home, when I burst into their midst.
There were about six of them. They were gathered around me, trying to comprehend my gibberings, when Cakebread appeared at the side door. He was brandishing the shotgun, no doubt with two fresh charges up the spouts, and looked intent on murder. The alley should have been deserted at that time of day. When Cakebread saw the crowd he panicked and fled back inside. I don't know if Penny Throstle's mats ever do any good for the people who pray on them, but there is no doubt that they saved my life.
Cakebread had killed Truscott with the second barrel. He jumped into the Rolls and fled through the front entrance. The poor gate man was dozing in his hut when the car smashed through the barrier. He hadn't even known that his boss was in the place. It was a long time, though, before I learned all this.