Road to Recovery

Chapter 25

  Three weeks later I was sent to Coventry by Mrs Blake, I had done nothing wrong, that was where Robin and family had finally decided to set up home. It wasn’t in the city centre of course; prices were much too extortionate there; it was in a delightful little village on the outskirts. They had managed to find a quaint little country house on the side of an idyllic lake, it only had twenty rooms but we all managed to squeeze in somehow. Their ‘new’ home was in fact a seventeenth century listed building, apparently designed by Inigo Jones himself, and of course when I say ‘their’ new home, guess who actually signed the cheque, I had to get them a belated wedding present now didn’t I.

  I spent the first two weeks doing what every new grandfather does, watch the nanny feed his grandson, watch her change his nappy (whilst I held my nose), and watch her push him around the grounds (I’m not into the ‘hands on’ way of doing things, although I do like children – especially with roast potatoes and broccoli), although I did manage to push him down to the pub occasionally. When I wasn’t exerting myself doing all that grandfatherly stuff I walked Bonnie and Clyde, and tried to hone my sailing and golfing skills (or lack of them), then my tranquillity came to an abrupt end. Alice turned up, with Bert in tow.

  I knew from the moment that they set foot in the house that I wasn’t in for a smooth ride; Alice was in a foul mood. They must have had a domestic on the way down, although Bertha was surprisingly quiet, unlike at Christmas, and she wouldn’t even meet my eyes, so I knew the problem must be big.

  When I had finally come to terms with my increased bank balance, as I had lain there in the hospital, I gave Robin and Alice half a million pounds each to play with, whilst I sorted out something more permanent, and what Vicente finally advised me to do was set up a trust fund for each of them. The problem wasn’t Robin, he had his head well and truly screwed on right, it was Alice - I dreaded to think what she would do with mega bucks, so what I created was a twenty-five million Pound inter vivos trust (living will) for each of them, with my old English Solicitor as trustee, he was not only a very conscientious Solicitor, he was also a very good friend. The children would always have ‘loose change’ in the bank but any serious withdrawals would require his counter signature before the transaction went ahead, with the situations being reassessed every year on their birthdays, and the trusts seemed to have worked fine, until Robin’s birthday six weeks ago, as he was now married I released the full amount to him, but Alice apparently had then assumed that I would do the same thing for her on her birthday a couple of weeks ago, and promised Bertha untold gifts. When I didn’t, she went ballistic; I was everything nasty under the sun, starting with homophobic. I must admit that it had been a bit of a shock when Alice had ‘outed’ herself, but I had come to terms with that. What I hadn’t come to terms with was Bertha’s demeanour, I just didn’t like her. Even if she hadn’t been involved with my daughter I doubt if I would have ever passed more than two words with her, she really wasn’t my type, in more ways than one. If that makes me a snob then so be it, I would not be forced into liking someone at someone else’s behest.

  Alice at first was livid, then she calmed down slightly, and after a quiet word with Bertha she suggested that the three of us go for a pub lunch tomorrow to try and find some common ground between us. I doubted if it would work but I was willing to give it a try, although what I didn’t realise was that it was Berta’s idea in the first place.

  The next day at one o’clock sharp Robin’s chauffer dropped Alice, Bertha, David, Caroline, Charlie and myself off at the entrance to the pub car park, I had arbitrarily decided at the beginning of my visit that the limo was much too large a vehicle to manoeuvre safely around its car park, and anyway the exercise would do me good!! As we left the limo and slowly made our way towards the pubs entrance, Bertha and Alice held back (they were trying to find something that Bertha had apparently dropped), and a very nice man stepped forward and pointed a very big gun at David and Charlie (I would normally have called him an uncouth yob but I am sure that someone would try suing me for loads of dosh), and his associate flung his arm around my throat and rammed a very hard gun muzzle into my neck, now that smarted, I hoped that Charlie would hurry up and sneeze!

  Eight months ago, as I lay immobile in hospital, after David had given his armful of blood, he had deliberately omitted to go through ‘the procedure’ about what I should do if situations like this arose, as I was bed ridden, but fortunately as I regained my health he gradually introduced me to them, and for the last couple of months, two or three times a week David and Charlie would create scenarios of what to do if ‘this’, or ‘that’ was to happen, in the comfort of my temporary gym, and this situation was covered in book one, chapter one, page one, line one - wait until Charlie sneezes, and Charlie sneezed.

  Fortunately Charlie’s hands were in plain sight so the gunmen glanced at him, realised that he wasn’t a threat, just had a cold - and returned to the job in hand, but unfortunately for him as Charlie sneezed, I retracted my undercarriage. I didn’t just bend my knees or lean forward - after months of training I beat gravity. It took me a while to perfect the technique, on very soft mats, but I finally had – and getting some very sore knees in the process.

  ‘Tweedle Dumb’ (for want of a better name), whose job it was to hold on to me found that I was disappearing rapidly in a downward direction, and there was nothing that he could do about it, I was, metaphorically speaking, a dead weight. He lifted heavy things most days but even he couldn’t hold me up using just one arm, and as he watched me writhe in agony on the concrete car park he felt a pain in his left shoulder. He looked down and saw the handle of a knife protruding from it. ‘Ouch! that hurt’ he thought, and then his left arm went numb. Fortunately he was left handed and the gun dropped to the concrete beside me.

  ‘Tweedle Dee’ (ditto), whose job it was to cover both Charlie and David glanced at Charlie, and seeing that both of Charlie’s hands were in plain sight he switched his gaze back to David, but unfortunately in that time David had grown a third eye, or to be more precise, a black eye, with a foresight above it, and out of this eye came a lump of lead travelling at three hundred and fifty metres per second. After the back of his head was removed he dropped his weapon as well, but unfortunately the fun and games weren’t quite finished yet as a very grand Daimler limo was entering the very same car park as these events were unfolding, and on the back seat of the car resided the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, also on his way to for pub lunch, and as he was a very important person he warranted an SO1 (Special Protection Branch of the Metropolitan Police) bodyguard. On seeing what was unfolding before him Inspector James Wood ordered the driver beside him to reverse out of harm’s way, but unfortunately there was a large lorry stationary behind them, waiting in a queue of traffic for the traffic lights to change, but ‘all was not lost’ though he thought, no bullet from a hand gun was ever going to penetrate this vehicle, so he told his Lordship to ‘hit the deck’ just in case (which he didn’t) and then sat back to watch the fun and games. He had immediately recognised David Williams from several of the specialist courses that he had attended over the years, so he knew that David had the situation well under control, until he spotted a battered old Volvo start up its engine, smoke billowing from its exhaust and come charging out of its parking bay - directly at David’s back. Instinctively Inspector Wood leaped from the car and drew his personal weapon. Resting it on top of the door frame he squeezed off two quick shots, then another two, just as David had taught him. The first two rounds entered the near side front tyre of the Volvo and caused the desired effect; the car swerved and collided with a parked car, and the second two entered the car’s front grill, passed through the radiator and rearranged some electrical bits and pieces in the engine bay, causing the engine to take no further interest in the proceedings.

  David, after ‘double tapping’ (killing) ‘Tweedle Dee’ heard a car start up behind him and then felt four bullets pass close by, and as
he instinctively dove for cover behind another parked car he caught a brief glimpse of the new gunman, and fortunately he recognised him. He had taught an awful lot of people in his time in the Army but this one he remembered. His performances in the team building exercises that they usually carried out on completion of his courses (in the bar) were legendary, and as he disentangled himself from a bicycle that had been lurking behind the car David saw Inspector Wood race by him and point his gun directly at the driver of the Volvo.

  After the ‘borrowed’ car had come to rest against (crashed into) another vehicle ‘Tweedle (Even) Dumber’ did arguably the brightest thing in his entire life, he did absolutely nothing. With his hands in plain sight on the steering wheel Inspector Wood had no reason to terminate his existence, so he just kept pointing his gun at an imaginary spot just between his eyes, and as he sat there looking down the business end of Inspector Woods hand gun he wished that he had never listened to his sister, and just stuck to joy riding, then he wondered where that horrible smell was coming from.

  Where was I whilst all these jollifications were going on, I was on the ground writhing in agony. I had broken an ankle and knac...damaged both my knees, but no one seemed to want to take the slightest bit of interest in me, until Caroline, who had hit the ground a milli-second after me, crawled across and started to behave like a nurse. Then I thought of Alice, with all these bullets flying around I wanted to make sure that she was safe. I looked in the direction of the car park entrance and saw that Alice was alongside the Daimler. First I saw her screaming at Bertha, then as Bertha tried to flee the scene, dear sweet little Alice grappled her to the ground and started to pound her head onto the concrete; this was definitely not turning into a relationship made in heaven, and as I lay there struggling to push Caroline off me, so that I could somehow hobble to Alice’s aid, a rather distinguished gentleman exited the Daimler’s rear door and pulled Alice off of her, unfortunately before she could do too much permanent damage to her. The Chauffer also exited the car and sat on Bertha, it wasn’t a very scientific form of restraint but as Bertha was unconscious, it was totally effective.

  As Tweedle Dumber was being dragged out of the car by Inspector Wood, he started to scream at the chauffer to get off his sister, and then, with just a little more encouragement, he then started to suffer from verbal diarrhoea as well. Apparently his sister Bertha had been rather miffed when it looked as though she wasn’t going to get anything significant out of Alice, so she hastily recruited two local thugs and Dwain (Tweedle Dumber) to kidnap me, and then hold me to ransom, obviously they hadn’t heard of the expression ‘working for a living’.

  When two armed response vehicles full of SO19 team members arrived a few minutes later they found Tweedle Dumb with a tie-wrap around his wrists, and a knife handle protruding from his shoulder, propped up against the Volvo’s front wheel, Tweedle Dumber handcuffed to its door frame (and smelling to high heaven), Alice sobbing uncontrollably into the shoulder of the Lord Chief Justice, David and Charlie trying to look innocent (with two big guns in their hands), me writhing on the concrete (with Caroline still trying to tend me), and Inspector Wood preserving the crime scene. Lord Fox wouldn’t let the incoherent Alice go just yet, he wasn’t one hundred percent sure where she fitted into all of this, but he hoped she was one of the good guys as he really liked her perfume.

  Inspector Wood had already been on his personal radio so there was no more gunplay, although the car park would be nicknamed the ‘OK Corral’ for many years to come, and with the Lord Chief Justice as an eye witness there weren’t going to be too many problems for David and Charlie, but they still had to temporarily give up their firearms and submit to a seemingly endless amount of questions ‘back at the station’, so when the first Ambulance arrived I was loaded into it, and the Lord Chief Justice detailed off two SO 19 team members to babysit me until The Colonel could organise something - who was going to argue with him.

  After a week in hospital I flew home with a new-fangled fibre-glass ‘plaster cast’ on my leg, as broken ankles go it was pretty pitiful - but it still hurt like hell. My knees initially were a bit more problematic, but after the Surgeons’ carried out a double arthroscopy on them (to trim off some damaged cartilage) I was ‘up and hobbling’ a couple of days later. The Gulfstream G450 came to rest directly outside my new hand carved wooden front doors - yet another thing to go on my wish list (the plane not the doors), and I hobbled down its steps, directly into a strategically placed wheel chair, Caroline had decided that with all the sightseeing that I was about to be doing it would be best done from the comfort of my trusty old chair.

  I was met by all and sundry, and after a group photograph I accepted the keys to my new home ‘officially’ from Paul, more photographs, and as I glided serenely into the Atrium I was stunned (even more photographs), everything was finished. Trees and bushes abounded and in the pool, happily splashing about were Robin, Emma, baby Mark and a rather shy Alice, swiftly joined by Bonnie and Clyde (you’ve guessed it, yet more photographs). Alice and I had talked ourselves silly over the past few days, I knew (and more importantly, the Police knew) that she had not been complicit in Bertha’s plot, and as she had only used ‘reasonable’ force to restrain a fleeing suspect there would be no action taken against her, although she did receive a rather nice letter from the Lord Chief Justice asking her what the name of her perfume was, his wife’s birthday was coming up soon. David and Charlie were also free to come back to Spain with me, although they would have to return in due course to attend the Coroners Court hearing, and that was fine by me, although I would object bitterly if Tweedle Dumber (Dwain) sent me his dry cleaning bill. The rest of the tour was very enjoyable (although I would happily have used David’s new gun on the photographer). All departments were up and running, and everything was to my total satisfaction, if it hadn’t been then I had threatened to knock a couple of noughts off the final bill – although there were so many of them I doubted if anyone would noticed, but after nearly two hours of sightseeing the final room on my tour was my bed room, where I remained, comatose, until the next day.

  Whilst I had been away enjoying myself (?) in England my temporary encampment had been removed and the ‘hole’ had grown even larger, reaching its final dimensions, although it had yet to be properly landscaped, and the first tanker of water wasn’t due for a couple of weeks, although I was rather disappointed that there wasn’t a giant plug and chain at the bottom of it.

  Now that I was in my permanent home I could entertain visitors like a normal person, and from day one I had streams of them, ranging from family to virtual strangers. I was now on the ‘must visit’ list with a vengeance, although it wasn’t all one way though, I started to receive reciprocal invitations, but usually somewhere in the shrubbery there was an unattached lady or two.

  A little while ago, after I had been on my spending spree in the Pueblo buying up properties left, right and centre, I had mentioned to Vicente in passing that I disliked graffiti with a vengeance, and lo and behold the very next morning I looked in my diary, which now resided centre stage on my huge brand new ‘antique’ desk and found that I had my first visitor, ‘11:00 - J.A. - graffiti ’, and at 10:55 sharp Maria showed J.A. in. J.A., or José Antonio to his friends (I would hate to be his enemy, his surnames were absolutely unpronounceable) had the sort of face that you took one look at and instantly knew that you could safely store your butter in his mouth, knowing that it wouldn’t melt. In a solicitor this was a very good thing. He was Vicente’s associate and he could, metaphorically speaking, rip someone’s throat out at the drop of a hat - and then they would thank him very much for doing so. He also had a vehement dislike of graffiti ‘artists’ as his mother’s apartment overlooked a large ‘multi-coloured’ wall, so Vicente had let him loose with my gripe. He realised that it would take years for a national campaign to bear any fruit so he was more than happy to start small, in San Miguel, as a sort of practice run. He’d had quiet meetings with the Mayo
r, Politicians, Police, and local businessmen; they all liked him very much and of course didn’t mind one little bit when he asked them for this ‘small’ favour, or that ‘small’ favour. They really didn’t have a clue what they were letting themselves in for. José Antonio had quietly cajoled the Politicians into tweaking a couple of existing local bye laws, and slightly amend another one; after all they were not all that important, and he was now in a position to spring his trap - but he needed some help from me and my money to do so. Although they didn’t realise it, the Politicians had made it an offence for anyone within the bounds of San Miguel to display graffiti in any form, even if they didn’t paint it on themselves. No matter where these ‘artists’ did their handiwork, someone, somewhere owned that surface, and now the owner had a legal obligation to remove it. The ‘Police Local’ were already willing to prosecute the ‘artists’ for vandalism but unfortunately it was a very difficult and time consuming job, and now on top of all that they would have to find out who owned the surface, and then give its owner thirty days to remove it. If the owner failed to remove it then the Ayuntamiento (Local Council) had to, within another thirty days, and then send the bill to the owner, and this is where I came in; responsible people were usually strongly against this type of vandalism, until it hit them in their pockets, whether it was directly, as the owner of a shop or property (occupied or empty), or indirectly when it came to paying their (slightly) increased taxes, so to make the pill easier to swallow Vicente had suggested to J.A. that perhaps I might be persuaded to provide funds to take some of the sting out of it initially. The Ayuntamiento would have to employ a small specialist team to remove the graffiti and to contact the owners, so for the first year perhaps I could sponsor it. I would in effect be cleaning up the Pueblo, once, but after that the residents would be on their own. It would make people realise that these ‘artists’ were criminals not cult hero’s. I thought that it was a great idea, and was well up to providing the funding, but how to spring the trap? The next day I was due to give a speech in the Pueblo, perhaps we might be able to use that occasion to our own ends.

  One of the first things that I had done for San Miguel when I arrived was to fund a large extension of the Centro de Salud (Health Centre), and provide some much needed modern equipment to go in it. Sheila would have liked that, so it was going to be named after her; and I doubted that she would object to me slipping the ‘graffiti’ bit in along the way. José Antonio and I thought long and hard about how to do this, but in the end it was a total waste of time, the residents of San Miguel loved the idea. I think they would have even paid the first year’s bill themselves, and the Mayor wasn’t the slightest bit miffed that we had gone behind his back; he would claim the scheme as his own and rake in the votes come election time. At the end of the ceremony José Antonio was even signing autographs. As a Yorkshire friend of mine used to say, ‘there’s now’t as queer as folk’, and one of the first customers to use the new medical wing was a young man, he was naked and covered from head to toe in spray paint and indelible marker; I think that the message had well and truly gone out.

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