Life Less Lived Ch. 11

"Early, still dark, I think. I was half asleep."

"It's late, I'll go check the stables," Daniel said, already moving towards the coats by the kitchen door.

Sophie and Marina immediately followed him to the door. Giles hunted out his outdoor shoes from the stack to one side of the doorway, before running after the others, although he had no chance of catching them before they reached the stables.

The last thing Giles expected, running though the open stable door into the gloom within, was seeing Marina and Sophie being restrained by a fat girl and a scruffy young guy, with Daniel prone on the ground, bleeding from a head wound. Before he could say anything, Giles had been wrestled to the ground by a big heavy man from behind and had his arms and legs bound with a nylon strap. He could see that Marina and Sophie were being similarly bound, despite their voluble protests until they were gagged too.

"Wait," Giles cried, "I'm a doctor, let me look at Daniel's wound!"

"No," came a commanding voice from an unseen man standing the shadows by the door, "gag him and take them through to the others."

Giles was pulled upright and made to hop, as his legs were trussed together at the ankles. Marina and Sophie just had their hands tied behind their backs and gagged, they were jostled away towards the stable stalls. The unconscious Daniel, still prone on the ground, was unceremoniously dragged down the barn towards the far end by the man from the shadows.

***

It was a murky dawn down the bottom of the hill, where the dawn sun hadn't reached yet, with mist rising from the wet fields on either side of the road. On the motorway the traffic was light this early in the day and the carriageway clear of mist. Lady Barbara therefore made good time until she got to the minor roads, where there were places where patches of light mist rolled across the lanes and she had to proceed with caution. She parked in front of the cottages, which were still and quiet, no lights showing in the overcast early morning. At this time of the morning, Lady Barbara had said on the way down, that the Hammonds were always up and about, but this was a bank holiday and still part of the Christmas holiday. Mavis Short next door, was often an early riser, and had probably made herself a cup of tea in her kitchen at the back, but otherwise there was no sign of life when they arrived.

Sir Philip was stiff after the journey and got out and stretched the ache out of his long legs.

"Why don't we walk up to the Grange, Phil?" Lady Barbara suggested, "Daniel might not be up yet, but the girls will be, especially Ginny, she'll want to ride Storm first thing. I haven't seen Ginny since the summer."

As Sir Philip glanced at the steep uninviting hill, Barbara grinned, adding, "Come on, Phil, the exercise will do you good. It was lovely and warm in the car, a brisk walk will prevent this chilly damp getting back into your bones. When we get back it'll only take an hour or so to pack, we can still be home in plenty of time for lunch."

"Yes, OK, Babs, with any luck they've have the coffee on."

"That's the ticket, " she laughed.

She locked the car and they linked arms as they walked up the hill, sticking to the empty lane until they reached the farm shop.

The lights were on in the kitchen at the Grange and the door unlocked, when they got there, the leavings of a breakfast on the table but there was no sign of life.

"They'll be in the stables, I expect," Lady Barbara suggested.

"We'll go have a look," Sir Philip said, linking arms with his wife, "haven't seen that old barn in years, I'd like to have a good look around it while we are here."

Lady Barbara didn't recognise the fat girl standing by the barn door, having a smoke. She was wearing a balaclava against the still, chilly air, but had pulled the opening below her chin so she could smoke. Barbara was sure she wasn't one of the girls from the village, one of several who worked in the market garden. She didn't come down from Cambridge with Sophie, so she must be a friend of Ginny's; not a doctor clearly, maybe a nurse. No, she was more likely one of Giles' sisters. A sweet boy, she thought, but she knew little of his family other than he came from quite a large one she remembered him saying, and this was one large sister!

The girl flicked her cigarette stub away, and ducked back inside the stables as they approached.

"She's never riding one of their horses, is she?" asked Sir Philip quietly, concern for the poor animal apparent.

"No, I wouldn't have thought so. She's hardly dressed for it either. That's odd," she added.

"What's odd?"

"In the exercise paddock behind the barn, that's Sophie's horse Daisy, with no bridle or saddle."

"Where?"

"By the gate, looks like she's waiting for Sophie to fetch her back in after her run."

"What's odd about that?"

"Normally she would have a bridle on when she's outside the barn, it's easier to guide from stable to field and back again, but maybe it was Marina who put her in the field."

"Marina?"

"Daniel's girlfriend."

"The one you quite liked?"

"Yes, in a way I did. I think she'd be good for Daniel, no, they'd be good for each other."

"Well, us fellows find it hard to get by without a good woman behind us, no, make that impossible."

Barbara laughed as she entered the stables, but was confronted by the same fat girl but this time holding a pitchfork, pointing it at them. She had pulled the balaclava up so it covered her face.

"We're friends of the Medcalfs," Lady Barbara began to say, before she was seized from behind, the girl dropping the pitchfork and approached her with a nylon tie. Lady Barbara glanced sideways and saw that Sir Philip was also being secured by a tie round his wrists, while being held by a big lad wearing a SandRock jacket. It can't be a disgruntled employee, she reasoned, no one knew they were even coming to Sussex but them; they must have interrupted a robbery. Lady Barbara held her wrists out and up to the fat girl, who strapped them up in front of her.

The lad then tied both a gag and blindfold over Sir Philip, and a similar piece of smelly rag was tied around Lady Barbara's mouth. She closed her teeth together so that the gag didn't go across her tongue, then her eyes were covered with a second strip of cloth. Once secured, she was pulled and pushed further into the stables.

She kept her cool, remembering her flight crew training from long ago, how she would know her bearings to guide passengers to the nearest exit, even if the cabin was filled with smoke. She felt they had turned her 90 degrees to the right, and led her 9 steps, about 25 to 26 feet towards the northern end of the barn, where she knew there were two empty stalls, before the last one half full of straw, hay and animal feed. She remembered Daniel filling the saddle bags with hay and sheep nuts from there a few days earlier. As they approached, she could strongly smell petrol. They stopped, turned her roughly 90 degrees to the left, walked two or three steps, then roughly pushed her to the ground. Her feet were lifted off the ground a few inches and another nylon tie secured her ankles together. She felt Sir Philip being deposited next to her and they bumped shoulders, before he too, had his legs tied.

Then she heard a woman approaching the stall, walking on heels which tap-tip-tapped on the oak floor. The other burglars had worn boots or trainers and walked relatively quietly. The woman stopped and, in hushed whispers to one of the men; both appeared agitated; it looked like a simple burglary was getting out of hand. Lady Barbara caught a clear whiff of perfume from the new arrival, she recognised it as Lancôme La Vie Est Belle, but couldn't remember who among her acquaintances wore it, but recognised it as being fairly recently.

***

Matt Jamieson jumped down from the passenger seat of the cab as soon as the heavy truck stopped moving and climbed into the cherry picker on the back, strapping on his hard hat, and clipped the crampon from his belt to the safety rail. At the same time, he flipped the lever to ascend the cage on the scissor lift, all long-practiced moves. He had seen the lamp cover still hanging down from the country lane street light as the truck approached. He had half expected it to have come down of its own accord over the last four days, but no, it was still hanging precariously from the rubber seal attached at one end. It would have been a bigger waste of time for him, of course, if it had already fallen down and become someone else's problem. At least, he thought, it was worth coming down to put it partly right. Being this early on the Bank Holiday, the volume of traffic on the motorway and side roads was quite light. It had still taken forty minutes to get here, for a five minute job, to be followed by another forty minutes back to the depot again. All because of a second or two of carelessness with the snow plough, on his part, clipping the street lamppost.

"No need for the legs, Bert," he called out to the driver, "a quick in, up and out."

The hoist soared up to the top of the lamp. Matt noticed that the delicate plastic lugs, intended to hold the lens in place, had sheared off when he hit the lamppost. He had some wire in his pocket, which he unwound ready, lifted the lens into place and secured it with the wire, ensuring the rubber seal was secure all round to keep the damp out.

As he worked, it occurred to him that he could smell burning. Probably, he thought, somebody was burning old leaves, fruit tree prunings or fallen branches. He tutted to himself, thinking that was typical of the country set, they were always burning something, despite all the snow and flooding they'd endured, and now even early on a Bank Holiday in the middle of winter!

He finished the wiring, neatly trimmed off the ends with a wire-cutter from his pocket, and wiped everything down. Then he relaxed, job done and he was able to look around him from his temporary vantage point.

Matt loved those rare moments being up high in the cherry picker, where you could often see for miles. On this side of the road there were no houses behind the hedgerow, containing a lot of larger trees, just ploughed fields or brown fields with a hint of green showing where some winter-sown grain was heading towards harvesting next year. The land gradually fell away from the road into a broad valley, with a very quaint looking village in the bottom of the dip. Then the land rose again somewhat, to complete the little valley, and then fell away again to a long coastal plain, eventually leading down to the sea away to the south over the horizon.

Matt turned round to face the chocolate box thatched farmhouse belonging to the friends of Sir Philip and Lady Barbara. They must be friends of theirs, he deduced, else why would Phil send two of his snow ploughs all the way out here in the wilds to clear specifically this house, Underhill Grange, and the row of cottages down at the bottom of the lane? Their depot only serviced the motorway, which ended miles away, at least until the proposed extension was built. They were nice people too, he remembered, because he had spoken to them at the time. Yes, really nice people, he thought, the gentleman friendly and gracious, his petite missus with the soft attractive smile and the tall willowy daughter, who was nothing short of gorgeous.

Having turned to face the house, he decided that could smell the burning much stronger, tasting on his tongue more like wood smoke than his first thought of damp leaves. He figured he could see a haze too, rather less than actual smoke above the house, perhaps from a bonfire in the garden? He was so nosy, he chuckled to himself, he just couldn't help himself. But he was a little concerned too, knowing the destructive effects of fire, he had seen enough burning vehicles on the highway to last a lifetime.

He moved the cage back slightly, away from the street lamp, and raised the cage higher, another 15 feet or so, half thinking he really should have deployed the legs to stabilise the vehicle at this height. As he rose, though, he could now see over the roof of the Grange building to what looked like a huge old barn beyond. Smoke, he could now see, was clearly percolating through the thatched roof.

"Bert," he shouted down to the driver, "get on t'blower, will you? Fire Service, tell 'em we need two pumps minimum, four preferably, thatched barn quite uncomfortably close to a Grade II Listed, address, Underhill Grange, Underhill Lane, Lindon. Hurry, man, an' shift yerself over to t'passenger seat while I get dahn!"

Matt lowered the scissor lift on the cherry picker and locked it safely at rest, undid his harness and climbed down from the cage, before pulling the cab door open and climbing into the driver's seat. Bert was still on the mobile telephone talking to the emergency services. Matt started up the motor and reversed up the rig until he could swing into the front yard of the Grange, being careful not to clip the lamppost again.

"We've bin smellin' smoke since we got here," Bert was saying into his microphone, "we're in a cherry picker workin' on the street lightin' and my gaffer was up top an' saw the fire from there. ... Yeah, I'll keep the phone open, looks like we're moving into the Grange front drive an' parkin' up as close as possible to the house so your guys can use us as an extra ladder ta get above the flames from the cherry picker. Yeah. Right. OK."

Matt parked in front of the house and got out of the cab. Using the hydraulic controls, he started to move the legs, which had been tucked out of the way until now, spreading them out to make the platform as steady as a rock. While he did one side, Bert got out and made a start on the other two legs. As soon as he had done his side, Matt ran down the side of the house to see if there was anything he could do regarding access to the barn, shouting to Bert as he ran.

"Check the road, Bert, see if you can find the fire hydrant, there should be one in the lane close to the house."

"Seen it already Chief, it's about 10 foot from where we parked earlier, on this side of the road by the hedge. I'll go get it opened ready and mark it with a traffic cone, so the 'Trumptons' can find it easy, like."

Matt ran around the corner of the house, to see if he could find his way to the barn. When he broke into the open space beyond the house, he almost bumped into a couple of youths running into him away from the barn.

"Hey, it's all right," he said, "the Fire Service are on their way."

To Matt's surprise, one of the youngsters suddenly punched him in the nose!

Now Matt had been a road engineer all his working life, some 35 years, working with some pretty rough crews. Exchanging blows to make your point was a common occurrence, particularly in the early days, and he brushed off the punch as if it was a wasp sting. He responded with a pile driver of his own, leaving the youth dazed and crumpled in a heap on the floor. The other youth was a much bigger lad, but looked panic stricken and turned to run back the way he came, but Matt grabbed his loose hood and pulled him back so sharply that he fell onto his back at Matt's feet.

"What's goin' on here?" Matt demanded.

"It's not me mister, I didn't want nuffink to do with it, it's the others."

"Where are the others?"

"The stables, over there. Honest, pal, he's gone mad!"

"Who? Who's gone mad?"

"Andy, he's the group leader. We was just gonna set fire to the stable, an' give Medcalf summink to thing about but that Andy an' 'is old man, they's trying to kill 'em. I don't want nuff -"

"Kill who?"

"The lot of 'em, Medcalf, his missus, his daugh'ers, an' Sir Philip Sands the road builder an' his missus, a couple of other fellas an'all. They wants to kill everybody!"

Matt hauled the guy up by the hood of his parka and then thumped him hard. The youth went down without a murmur, lying next to his companion. Just then Bert came round the corner, still holding his phone.

"What's goin' on, Chief?" Bert said as he regarded the two prone youths.

"The Boss 'n' Lady Babs is here and he's in't trouble, go get t'big spanner from t'rig, I'll go ahead and see what's happening."

"OK Chief, I'll let 'em know we want the police 'ere, too."

"Right, hey, I can hear the sirens. Forget the spanner, you better get back to t'rig then and help t'Trumptons, I'll go an' find t'Boss."

Matt turned and ran towards the barn, the smoke coming out the top was no longer a fine mist but a thick black torrent now. As he rounded the corner in the gloom from the smoke, the place was suddenly lit up with a crashing roar at the flames shot through the roof in a shower of sparks. There in front of him, Matt could see dancing silhouettes backlit by the open barn doors, the whole of the inside a raging inferno.

As he ran up to the group, who he couldn't see clearly as they were silhouetted against the flames. It was a confusing scene in front of him. He could see that one of them had been trying to run back towards the doors of the barn, but after the explosion, another man had realised the futility of going back in. Then he restrained the other man purely by getting in front of him. Matt could feel the fierce heat coming off the burning barn and he was twenty feet further away from the flames.

He could recognise Sir Phil now, even through he was blindfolded, gagged and had his hands tied behind his back, and he wondered what he was doing here. He was in London three days earlier, he'd spoken to him at the company ball. He was now being restrained by a young man, who was desperately trying to prevent Phil going any further. On the floor, there was an old man, quite a weedy specimen, who was trying to crawl away, smoke rising from his clothes. He wasn't tied or gagged. Sitting on the ground, was the gorgeous girl he saw at the house, but now sobbing, the tears streaking her sooty blindfold and face, and coughing from smoke inhalation. Another man, lay on the ground, bound head and foot, gagged but eyes wild, appealing to Matt for release. Standing a little way back from the group was a rather fat girl, looking lost and rather stupid.

Matt deduced from the scene that the gentleman and his attractive wife, who he met the other day, was still in the barn. And further, that Lady Barbara wasn't around either, did the Boss's efforts to get to the barn indicate that she was in that hell-hole too? Such a shame, Matt thought, he had spoken to her just the other night, at the company ball, not having seen her for a couple of years, yet she was lovely and charming, making him and his wife feel so welcome after initially feeling a little out of place at that posh London do. She even asked after their absent daughter by name too. Lovely lady, worthy of the title and, if she was in there, probably lost forever. That would kill Phil, losing Lady Babs would finish him.

Even as these thoughts formulated in his head, the first stream of water came directed from over the roof of the house, directly into the flames. Another diffused stream of water sprayed over the group standing near the flames. A body of firefighters ran into the space in front of the barn, their flashes of yellow or orange high visibility jackets standing out in the smoke and overcast winter gloom. They smartly positioned themselves between the onlookers and the barn and very soon started up their own streams of water, some washing down the outer walls, others directed at the seat of the flames through the open barn doors.

The fire, as if in mockery at these puny efforts, caused the top half of one of the walls of the ancient barn to collapse into the inferno with a crash, sending up another shower of sparks and bathing the onlookers in a tidal wave of searing hot gas. As one they had to stagger back from the flames. Only the fire fighters, in their flame retardant clothing and helmets, stood their ground and replied with jets of cooling water.