36. Inside Information

Thinking that I might be a furlong or two short of wisdom’s finishing post should I decide to hang around the stables until Finch awoke, I left him to recover in the company of the young Falk who had continued to prove that she is of the highest order of good sorts by promising to delay that council cad for as long as possible.

It did occur to me that her method of delaying the man might involve another crack across the brow with her dung spade but I was in no mood to plead leniency for the dung spade. Finch’s head seemed highly suited to dung spades in general, so who was I to stand in the way of such a happy reunion? Instead, I made my way back to the field where a much relieved Samantha Spoon greeted me with a kick to my shins.

‘What was that for?’ I screamed painfully before I jumped out of the way of a second kick that would have made Rosa Kleb proud.

‘You oaf!’ she fumed, following her under-the-radar attack with a sharp jab into my ribs that made my spine buckle. ‘Some kind of hero! What were you thinking, running off like that and leaving me here all alone?’

I admit that I was touched by this display of concern.

‘My dear Miss Spoon,’ I replied surprisingly kindly given her attacks. ‘You really shouldn’t worry so much. I’ve been trained by the boy scouts to live off the land. I could have survived out here for a week on rabbit meat alone. And you wouldn’t believe the feast I could make of toads, berries, and bison.’

‘Worry? It’s not worry,’ she replied. ‘You don’t pay us enough to make us worry about you. This is just about professionalism. I’ll be damned if we lose this election because you deserted us in our vital moment. What was I meant to do if things turned ugly?’

‘Miss Spoon,’ I smiled. ‘You’re an asset to the campaign. I’m sure you would have coped admirably. Has a candidate ever had such a competent press officer? You’re the Rapunzel of political spin.’

‘It would end up a real fairy tale if I tried to spin the fact that you’d run off with the keys to a bulldozer chased by the council’s chief environment officer who wanted to demolish your fifty foot wicker man which will soon be used to sacrifice chickens and goats as part of a local festival for druids.’

She looked across to where Harry Lamb was sitting with Mr. Starling and his team. A few of the councillor’s assistants had joined them and a large thermos flask stood in the centre of the circle like some ritual totem steaming ominously with the power of the underworld run by the gods of Tetley.

‘They wondered about coming after you but they decided it was better to drink some tea,’ she explained.

‘A wise choice,’ I replied. ‘It’s better like this. I wouldn’t want Harry to get too excited. You can never be sure about men trained by the BBC. They always want to be first with the news but they don’t tend to think of what they’re doing until they’ve done it.’

‘That’s what made me worry,’ she replied, her face easing out of its scowl as her voice lowered to a whisper. ‘You gave Central Office enough rope to hang you when you murdered poor Mr. Mullins. Now you’re starting a fight with the council. The leadership won’t like it if they catch wind of it.’

‘Oh, don’t you worry about Central Office,’ I told her. ‘Michael Howard knows me only too well to know I wouldn’t deliberately murder a duck. And don’t you go worrying about Harry. Harry will report exactly what we want him to report. He’s old school BBC. He knows which side to butter his toast.’

‘What’s has this got to do with toast?’ she spat. ‘I heard him talking to his newsroom. He described this as guerilla warfare breaking out in the heart of C---– N----. He’s asked for the camera crew they usually send to Angola.’

‘Angola?’ I admit that it didn’t sound like Harry had quite grasped what I wanted of him.

‘Leave Harry to me,’ I said and dangled the bulldozer’s keys before her eyes by way of distracting her with the troublesome silverware. ‘We have finer fish to fry. I managed to get the keys to the bulldozer!’

Her lips narrowed. ‘And where’s Finch?’

‘Oh, he’s slowly coming around to our way of seeing things,’ I said and left it at that lest she took some kind of stance against the wilful battery of council officers with a dung spade. I walked across to Lamb who was in deep conversation with a member of the demolition team.

‘Ah, J.P.!’ exclaimed Harry, rising and in the same motion emptying his cup, hot and steaming, to the grass. ‘I’ve just been discussing your problem of this bonfire of yours. Do you know they’ve got a court order to have it knocked down?’ He lay a hand on the man he’d been talking to. ‘My young friend here is a fount of all knowledge regarding Mr. Finch’s plans. He’s agreed to dish the dirt in exchange for a small favour.’

‘Has he now?’ I asked, not a little delighted to find that Harry’s training was paying off with a bit of privileged information from the opposite camp. It was exactly the sort of thing I expected of a man who had once worked as John Simpson’s understudy.

The young man stood up and turned to face me.

‘My names Christopher Conroy Whelps,’ he said, brushing a lank chuck of hair from his face planted with enough acne to feed a small nation. He looked no older than twenty years and had the thin malnourished look of a large ginger whippet. ‘My friends call me C.C.’

‘Well, Mr. Whelps. What can I do for you?’

He looked quickly at Harry who just nodded.

‘Mr. Lamb said that you’ve got plenty of contacts in London,’ he said as simply as that.

‘Did he indeed?’

‘He’s a law student,’ explained Lamb and nodded at the boy. ‘He’s very eager to learn.’

The lad wiped his hand across his nose and sniffed loudly as he briefly inspected the back of his hand. Most definitely a law student.

‘The thing is, Mr. Murgatroid, sir. No law firm will give me a chance. That’s why I’m working for the council. And I hate it...’

His eyes flared on the word ‘hate’ and I could see the deal that Harry had made in my name.

‘So, what would you give in exchange for my assistance?’ I asked.

Master Whelps smiled slyly. ‘I can tell you what old Finchy has got planned.’ He grabbed my arm and walked me towards the bulldozer, well away from the hearing of the others. ‘He’s got it in for you, Mr. Murgatroid. You’ve made a real enemy there. Says you assaulted him. I wouldn’t blame you if you did. His sister’s standing against you in the election and they want to cause you so much embarrassment that you’ll stand no chance of winning.’

‘I’m aware of all this, my boy,’ I said. ‘It’s hardly worth an introduction in the Inns of Court.’

He flushed at my mention of London’s legal paradise.

‘Okay, well what if I told you that he’s planning a raid?’

‘A raid?’

He nodded towards the bulldozer. ‘This was just meant to annoy you. You know, get you riled up before he launched his real attack. He never honestly thought we’d be able to get past you with just a bulldozer. And to be honest, old Finchy didn’t want that. Not yet, at least. This was meant to annoy you ahead of the real assault, which is when he’s bringing the TV cameras with him.’
I rocked on my heels and looked up at the sky. What the lad was telling me made so much sense. The whole day had the air of drama about it but it had never felt like we’d got past the fourth act.

‘So tell me about the main assault,’ I said.

‘Tonight,’ he said in almost a whisper. ‘They’re bringing all the council’s bailiffs in. You’ll have no chance. They’ve got the police to back them up and a TV crew from one of the satellite news channels is coming as well to film the whole thing. Finch wants to show you up in front of the whole country.’

‘That,’ I said, and gave the lad’s arm a solid punch. ‘That is more than worth an introduction to my lawyer friends in London,’ I promised him.

‘But what are you going to do about Finchy? He’ll ruin you, Mr. Murgatroid. You’d be better off knocking it down yourself and avoiding the confrontation.’

I looked up at the wicker man, his big face cut from branches forming a strangly enigmatic smile that appeared to be defying the ages.

‘There are more than a few of us who can take pleasure in something so monstrously irrational,’ I said to the young lad. ‘When the countryside discovers that it’s traditions are being attacked, there will be civil war in this field.’ I shook my head as the thought of my plan came together.

‘This will be the fight that defines this election!’