Hal got up, hot, bruised and sweaty from his fight with Edmund. He took a quick dip in the pool to cool off. When he got back, Edmund had started to revive and was mouthing threats and curses at him. Hal thought that he had heard enough from Edmund for one day and decided to silence him. Rummaging in his own jacket pockets he found an apple – a nice, big, juicy Granny Smith – which he now jammed firmly between Edmund’s teeth, pushing his jaws tightly shut. Since Edmund’s hands were tied, he could not easily remove the apple.
Edmund still mumbled curses, but they were now muted by the apple. He looked like a sucking pig, trussed and ready to be roasted. Humour apart, what was Hal to do with Edmund? He risked being sued for assault and perhaps wrongful arrest, which would involve lawyers and unwelcome publicity, with the Army inevitably getting involved. He might lose his Corporal’s stripes. Fuck! What to do? he wondered as he moodily pulled on his very brief briefs and then got dressed in jeans, T-shirt and a denim jacket, worn with dockside loafers.
Inspiration dawned: Ask Sir Toby Bloodgood! Toby, a fun friend of Jim’s – and increasingly of Hal’s too – an ingenious contriver of practical jokes, would surely think of something. Hal rang Toby on his Mobile. Once more, Hal was in luck. Not only was Toby at home, but so was Richard Finch MP, on official business; someone whom Hal liked and admired, and who believed in helping out friends; even the friends of friends. When Richard learned what Hal had done to Edmund, whom he had known and disliked in the SAS, he fell about laughing.
“You’ve done what? Trussed him up with his own MCC ties? That’s brilliant. This I have to see! Be with you in ten minutes!”
When Toby and Richard arrived, Richard produced a small, very advanced, camera. He took shots of Edmund from every possible angle. Above the apple, Edmund’s eyes looked furious.
Richard reviewed the photos on his camera. “Hey, this’ll look good in News of the World, or some similarly august periodical!” he chuckled. “Just imagine, Edmund: ‘Senior Home Office Spook in Gay Bondage Frolic’. How your employers would enjoy that, not to mention the Marylebone Cricket Club, who are sure to spot their garishly coloured ties tying you up!”
“Gnnnnn!” snarled Edmund through the apple.
“What’s that? You don’t agree?” Richard cupped a hand to his ear, feigning deafness. “I’m afraid that it’ll have to happen, unless of course you undertake never to annoy the two young gentlemen who live here again!”
Edmund could not say much, being still gagged. He looked furious but finally nodded his assent.
Disposing of Edmund was more challenging than disposing of the burglar. Richard’s eventual solution was to drive him and leave him, still tied up and naked, in his car in a quiet suburb of Clumpthorpe. After which, Toby Bloodgood, sounding convincingly hung-over, alerted the Police by phone, from one of the surviving rural public call-boxes at an isolated location, explaining anonymously that a stag party had got ‘slightly out of control’. He very much feared that the prospective bridegroom was now to be found in X Street, in his car, naked and the worse for wear. He would probably be rather unwell and, if not rescued soon, might miss his wedding. He then rang off. Edmund was duly found in X Street. He was relieved not to be recognised; he gratefully went along with the stag party story. Richard Finch had been unusually considerate in that respect. Even so, Edmund ground his teeth quietly at the memory.
“Boys will be boys!” sighed the duty Sergeant, after he had supplied Edmund with some Oxfam clothes and sent him on his way. He shrugged and turned to other business.
“No point in being vindictive,” as Richard smugly observed to Hal, who would happily have heaped other humiliations on Edmund. However Hal had the satisfaction of seeing in the local and weekly Clumpthorpe Mercury a short article on” Stag Night that Went Horribly Wrong!” with a picture of Edmund holding a policeman’s cap over his genitals as he was escorted into the police station. Fortunately the national Press did not cover the story. Richard however made sure that Edmund received a copy of the article. He sent it through the normal Post: Pity I shall not see his face when he opens it. Better still, if his PA opens it! In fairness to Richard, it should be recorded that he also returned all of Edmund’s clothes, including the blue Speedo, to him at Richard’s own expense, by Post; likewise, to his office address. Like the Mercury article, they duly appeared in his in-tray.
The Clumpthorpe Mercury did not reveal Edmund’s name, as the Police had refused to release it, but speculated of the naked bridegroom that “he is believed to be a member of the armed forces”. Since Clumpthorpe was near one Army base and two RAF bases, this was a reasonable guess. (Moreover Edmund had been a soldier, although he was now a civilian.) This provoked correspondence in the paper, lasting for several weeks, about the rising and undesirable popularity of Clumpthorpe’s mediaeval Shambles quarter, which contained several historic pubs, for riotous stag parties, post-match parties and other masculine-bonding events. It was not just the Armed Forces who occasionally offended; Clumpthorpe was within reach of both Cambridge and East Anglia Universities, which possessed boisterous rugby clubs, who also occasionally infested the Shambles. While they caused the publicans to prosper, others in the area were less-enthusiastic.
Richard Finch had become an honoured and welcome guest at Little Kansas whenever he was in the area; which was quite often. Now a Government Spokesman for Agriculture and Rural Affairs, he and Toby Bloodgood had many reasons to confer and conspire. Moreover, Toby’s marriage loomed the horizon; distantly, but still approaching, and Richard, who had been Toby’s occasional boyfriend for some time, was ‘making hay while the sun shone’; i.e. while Toby was still single, able and willing. At present he was all of these things; a fun mixture of man and boy.
The Dangling Commoner Inn, where Richard lived on the fourth floor when he was working in Westminster, briefly emerged from its normally deep obscurity. From time to time the owner, Mr Sonthiel, would organise an art competition (with a cash prize) for a new inn-sign. The design: a Peer and a Bishop in their Parliamentary or Coronation robes, of any period, toasting a villainous, hanged Commoner, had to remain basically the same, but the artists were at liberty to choose their Commoner victim. The winning entry showed, for the first time in The Commoner’s long history, a female figure dangling from the gallows. Her wildly kicking legs displayed capacious purple bloomers. It was unmistakeably Mrs Gwendoline Twaddle MP (La, Birmingham Crosspatch). Mr Harradence, Mrs Twaddle’s Researcher, vainly begged Mr Sonthiel to take down the sign before Mrs Twaddle became aware of it, as he himself would bear the brunt of her inevitable, intemperate rage. In the event it was even worse that Mr Harradence had foreseen: paraffin was thrown on the fires of her rage when she discovered that the artist of her insulting caricature was the hated Richard Finch MP. (Scurrilous caricature was one of Richard’s many hidden talents; he collected Vanity Fair political cartoons by ‘Spy’, ‘Ape’, other Edwardian artists; had made a study of the subject and even written a monograph about it.) The scandal caused the takings in The Dangling Commoner’s bar to rocket, to Mr Sonthiel’s profit but to the annoyance of many of his regular customers, who appreciated its dated and tranquil atmosphere. It also caused Mrs Twaddle to consult her solicitors, Messrs Sue, Grabbit and Runne. Eventually a compromise was reached; Richard’s sign would only be displayed indoors and the runner-up’s inn-sign would be displayed outside instead. This was only a slight improvement: the hanged man closely resembled the Leader of the Opposition who, however, tended to regard any publicity as potentially good publicity.
"Oscar Wilde thought that and look what happened to him!" screeched Mrs Twaddle when she was told.
Back at Little Kansas, Jim had spent some of his recent profits on improvements to the security system. This was fortunate because, soon after the new equipment’s installation, yet another attempted break-in occurred. This time, the would-be intruder received an electric shock and was recorded being shocked on camera. It was evidently Edmund, although his face was somewhat obscured by dark-green camouflage cream.
“That man ought to be sectioned,” said Richard when he learned about it. “I’ve already warned him off the premises. He’s obsessed. It’s either straightforward revenge, or he just can’t get you - both of you, probably – out of his mind. If so, it’s sex, possibly non-consensual sex at that, rather than a social call, that he has in mind. Having said that, I suppose it’s understandable. I can’t ever make up my mind which of the pair of you is better-looking.”
For a moment Jim and Hal looked shocked. Then they burst out laughing.
“Chuckle away, Chuckleheads!” said Richard. “But take extra precautions. Unwanted admiration is at the very least a bleeding nuisance. Edmund is a hard man and he obviously has a screw loose. If this goes on, you're going to need a guard, which I could organise, though that sort of thing comes at a price!”
Richard, who had also come to do some fishing, walked to the Quarry Pond. As it was a fine day, he stripped to the waist. Then he cast, using a spinner. His bait was taken almost immediately by a large perch. Richard began to play it carefully. Perch were among the few coarse fish that actually tasted good; at least, if cooked in the correct way. The others, in Richard’s view, had a slightly muddy flavour, or no flavour at all. Suddenly the line went slack. Had the perch got away?
No, was the answer. When Richard wound in his line, the perch’s head was still firmly attached to it by the hook. But something else had bitten off, and presumably eaten, the rest of the perch, which had not been small. Now what the fuck could that have been? Richard wondered. It must be pretty big, and how did it get here? It must be a lot bigger than a pike.
