Country Pursuits Read online

  Freddie climbed in and drove off slowly, forgetting to put his headlights on. By Jove, the Snickers bar was good. He couldn’t get it in his mouth fast enough! After a few minutes, the country lanes once again yawned open ahead of him. He didn’t know if it was his eyesight, but he was finding it damned hard to concentrate. Now, where was that green triangle one in the Roses?

  Suddenly, blue lights appeared in his rear-view mirror, accompanied by the wailing of police sirens. A car chase, thought Freddie dreamily. For some reason he burst out laughing and, with some difficulty, pulled the Land Rover over into a grassy lay-by and waited for the police car to pass. But to his surprise, it stayed behind him, lights flashing insistently in his mirror. Freddie cut the motor. Must have a flat tyre, he thought, pulling out a caramel toffee with which to ponder the situation.

  Moments later, there was a rap on the window. Freddie wound it down and peered out into the gloom. He was confronted by a stern DS Powers and red-nosed PC Penny.

  Powers took in his red, unfocused eyes and the discarded sweet wrappers all over the passenger seat. ‘Do you know why we stopped you, sir?’ he asked grimly.

  Freddie shrugged, his mouth half full. ‘No idea, officer, got a flat have I? Can I offer you a sweet?’ He thrust a box of chocolates in Powers’s face.

  ‘No, thank you.’ DS Powers slapped away PC Penny’s gloved hand, hovering hopefully around the sweets, and fixed Freddie with his scariest police officer look. ‘You were driving erratically. Not only that, you have no lights on. Were you aware of that?’

  ‘Golly, no!’ replied Freddie, more intent on looking for the giant-sized fruit and nut bar he knew he’d bought. Locating it in the plastic carrier bag, he pulled it out. ‘I like a good nut, don’t you?’ For some reason, Freddie found this hysterically funny and started chortling uncontrollably.

  ‘This one’s away with the fairies, isn’t he?’ Penny whispered excitably.

  Powers had seen enough. ‘All right Penny, let’s get him out. By the look of it, he’s stoned out of his mind.’ He sighed, what with the missing body and now poshos on the funny fags, he wondered what this sodding place was going to throw up next.

  Freddie caught the tail end of his sentence. ‘Hang on, you’re going to stone me?’ he said indignantly. ‘That’s a bit much, I only had the bloody headlights off!’

  Powers opened the driver’s door and pulled Freddie out. ‘Ow, what are you doing?’ Freddie stood unsteadily as Penny leaned across him, pulling the keys out of the ignition and pocketing two Ripples in the process.

  Powers shone a flashlight into Freddie’s eyes, then leaned in and sniffed him, like a bloodhound. The sweet, heavy smell of marijuana was unmistakable on his clothing. Satisfied, Powers snapped the torch off, facing Freddie with an iron grip on his arm.

  ‘You’re accompanying me down to the station, sunshine, on suspicion of driving whilst under the influence of Class B drugs.’

  Freddie stared at him, uncomprehending. ‘What?’

  Powers tightened his grip. ‘Don’t make this worse for yourself. Penny, put this gentleman in the back of the car and mind his head while you do it. And no, you can’t handcuff him.’

  It was 1 a.m. before Angie turned up in her pyjamas and full-length wax jacket at Bedlington police station. She was in a state of shock, having been woken by a phone call informing her that her husband was being held in one of the cells.

  ‘But I don’t understand, what’s he done?’ Angie wailed to the grumpy desk sergeant who was fantasizing about his warm bed. ‘Fred’s never been in trouble in his life. Oh, this must be some kind of horrible mistake!’

  DS Powers appeared at the sergeant’s shoulder. ‘Are you Angelica Fox-Titt, spouse of one Frederick Fox-Titt of the Maltings, Churchminster?’

  ‘Yes!’ Angie cried. ‘Where’s Freddie? What’s going on?’

  ‘Madam, if you’ll come this way,’ said Powers ominously and led Angie through to one of the interview rooms.

  ‘He’s done what?’ asked an appalled Angie five minutes later. She was sitting next to her husband, who was slumped beside her, moaning slightly.

  ‘Smoking drugs? Freddie?’ She stared into her husband’s face, finally recognizing the dopey expression and bloodshot eyes for what they really were. ‘Oh Fred! In our house! With Archie there! What on earth were you thinking?’

  Freddie was finally coming out of the stupor that had gripped him all evening. ‘Drugs? What are you going on about?’ he cried. ‘I just got a bit peckish, that’s all!’

  DS Powers ignored him, leaning in towards Angie. ‘Mrs Fox-Titt, can you remember when the first signs of your husband’s drug abuse started?’

  ‘Now hang on a minute—’ started Freddie.

  ‘Mood swings, irritability, secretive or out-of-character behaviour?’ Powers continued.

  Angie thought for a moment. ‘None of these things!’ she said desperately. ‘He’d got a bit absent-minded recently, but I thought it was early onset dementia.’

  ‘Thanks very much!’ Freddie said indignantly.

  Powers wasn’t giving up yet. ‘Any drugs paraphernalia stashed away in his sock drawer?’ he persisted. ‘You’ve never come across the smell of unfamiliar smoke in your home?’

  Angie looked at Freddie. He shrugged, utterly confused. ‘I suppose the only smoke I’ve smelt is from my son Archie’s incense candles,’ she said apologetically.

  ‘Bloody things, they stink my study out,’ grumbled Freddie.

  ‘I have asked him to open his window and get a bit of fresh air in,’ Angie told Freddie.

  He rolled his eyes. ‘You’re all right darling, you can escape to your shop! I’m stuck at home with those hippy candles burning like funeral pyres all day long. I don’t know why people like them, they give me a right bloody headache.’

  Powers was watching this exchange with mounting interest. He fixed Freddie with a questioning eye. ‘Mr Fox-Titt. You are categorically saying that you do not use marijuana, even though you are showing clear signs of being exposed to it?’

  ‘I certainly don’t!’ said Freddie.

  Powers and Penny looked at each other and then back at the Fox-Titts. ‘This son of yours, Archie, is it? How old is he?’ asked the detective.

  ‘Seventeen,’ replied Angie impatiently. ‘But I don’t see what this has got—’

  Powers cut her off. ‘And these funny smelling incense candles? How long has he been burning them in your house?’

  Angie and Freddie looked at each other again, their minds frantically working overtime. Archie, their only child, who, in recent months, had become withdrawn, moody and unsociable. The light switch finally flicked on. Angie’s face drained of colour and her eyes brimmed with tears. ‘My baby!’ she sobbed into her hands.

  ‘The little sod!’ Freddie yelled. ‘I’m going to bloody kill him!’

  The Fox-Titts left the police station at 3.04 a.m. Once he had established that Freddie was an unknowing victim of passive smoking, DS Powers had exercised his discretionary powers and released him without charge. The couple sat in silence as Angie drove home, and before she had pulled up outside the house Freddie was already opening his door. ‘Oh Fred, can’t this wait until tomorrow?’ Angie pleaded. They were both so tired and overwrought, she didn’t think she could handle a showdown with her son right now.

  Freddie looked back at her, his mouth set in a straight line. ‘Sorry, darling, it can’t.’

  Angie sighed: ‘OK, let me park the car. Let’s do this together.’

  Even hours later, they could detect the rank, sweet smell inside that had been perfuming their house for so many months. Incense candles, their son had told them. I know better now, thought Freddie grimly.

  As he walked up the stairs, Angie close behind him, the smell became stronger. Freddie was at Archie’s door and turning the handle before he knew it. He fumbled for the switch along the wall and flicked it on. Harsh light flooded the room.

  The room stank. Lying on his bed on top of
the covers, face down and fully clothed, with the end of a gone-out joint in one dangling hand, was Archie. He was dribbling, a large pool of spit collecting next to his mouth on the duvet. Sitting on a bean bag in the corner was Tyrone, fast asleep, his head back and mouth open. Angie gasped, the place was a pit! Magazines, Rizla papers and empty beer cans were strewn everywhere, the remains of a takeaway pizza on the floor in front of them. In the middle of the chaos was a small clear plastic bag, half-full of what looked like dried herbs. Freddie scooped it up.

  Neither boy stirred, then after a few moments Tyrone slowly opened one bleary eye. Trying to focus on Freddie and Angie, he yawned loudly. ‘What’s with the light, man? Easy now!’

  That was it. ‘All right you two, up. UP!’ roared Freddie. He went over and shook his son roughly by the shoulders. Archie moaned but didn’t wake up. Freddie got a pint glass of half-drunk water that was sitting on the chest of drawers, and emptied it over his son’s head.

  It did the trick. Archie jumped up, awake now and in shock, his top soaking and hair plastered to his head. He stared indignantly at his father. ‘What are you doing? I’m all wet!’ Suddenly aware of Tyrone’s presence, he sucked his teeth derisively at his parents and looked at his friend. ‘Check out the olds. Aggro!’

  ‘Stop that bloody awful rap star act when we’ve given you a perfectly good education!’ Freddie shouted.

  Archie flinched. His dad was seriously het up. ‘What are you doing in here?’ he asked, sounding sulky and slightly more contrite.

  ‘What are you doing, more like,’ thundered Freddie. ‘Smoking drugs in my house!’ Archie’s eyes widened momentarily and he scanned the room in panic. ‘Looking for this?’ Freddie asked him, thrusting the bag in his face.

  Flattened by his father’s rare show of anger, Archie looked to his mother for support. But Angie bit her lip and turned away, disappointment and unhappiness in her eyes. Archie turned back to Freddie and spread his hands in a placating gesture. ‘Dad, I can explain . . .’

  ‘Explain what, exactly? The fact that you’ve been smoking drugs under my roof while your mother and I feed you, clothe you and send you to bloody college? I’ve just been pulled over by the police and very nearly arrested because I’ve been inhaling all the smoke that’s stinking out the house.’

  Tyrone whooped. ‘You got pulled over by the Feds? Bruv, respect!’ He went to high-five Freddie but was met by a look that could have curdled milk. He shrank back into the bean bag instead.

  Freddie continued. ‘You’ve put yourself at risk, me at risk, your mother at risk . . . I ought to bloody lynch you!’

  ‘Dad, I’m sorry!’ pleaded Archie, on the verge of tears now. ‘Honestly, I didn’t mean to upset you and Mum.’

  ‘It’s too late for that,’ Freddie said ominously. ‘You are grounded indefinitely.’

  ‘You can’t do that!’ howled Archie, ‘I’m seventeen!’

  ‘I can, if I confiscate your car and stop your allowance. You’ll get a lift to and from college and that’s it. If you aren’t back in your room by seven o’clock every night doing your homework, the car and allowance are gone for good. Understood?’

  The fight had gone from Archie, and he nodded moodily just as a loud snore shattered the tense standoff in the room. They all turned to face the sleeping Tyrone. ‘I want him gone by morning, Archie,’ Fred die told his son. ‘He’s been nothing but bloody trouble.’ With that, suddenly exhausted by the last few hours, he ushered his wife from the room and they finally went to bed.

  The next morning Fred die, worried the drugs might have seriously affected Archie’s brain, phoned the college from his study to enquire how Archie’s studies were going. He was horrified to hear his son hadn’t been to a lesson in two months. ‘We thought he’d left. A shame because he was a bright boy,’ Archie’s genial form tutor told him.

  ‘I can assure you he hasn’t,’ Freddie informed him grimly. ‘He’ll be in first thing on Monday. I want every free hour of his timetable filled so he can catch up. Can you see to it?’ The tutor gave his word he would and Freddie hung up. Sighing, he ran his hand over his face and thought about the morning’s events. Tyrone had slunk out early, Fred die had flushed the rest of the drugs down the downstairs loo, and Archie was still sulking in his bedroom, probably vowing never to speak to his parents again. Freddie leaned back in his big, leather desk chair and sighed again. Children, who’d have them? At least he wouldn’t be putting on any more weight, now he’d stopped mindlessly shovelling down grilled Mars bar toasties. What had those two girls called it, ‘the munchies’? Shuddering at the thought, Freddie vowed to go on a diet until Christmas.

  Chapter 50

  ON SATURDAY, 31 October, the Jolly Boot put on a Hallowe’en party, ‘fancy dress optional’. Jack and Beryl had spent hours decking the pub out like a ghoulish grotto, and it looked fantastic. The ceiling was covered with midnight-blue sheets, dotted with hundreds of silver stars. Green and purple lights cast an eerie glow over the bar. Through one of Jack’s old mates, who worked in a travelling theatre, they’d managed to secure a huge painted backdrop of Dracula’s castle, sat high atop a craggy cliff, ferocious-looking wolves circling the wild land below. It was stretched across an entire wall, and Beryl had added her own touches, adorning it with rubber snakes and spiders. In one corner sat two large plastic buckets, waiting to be filled up with water for an apple-bobbing competition, a chalkboard hanging on the wall above to mark the contestants’ results.

  Much to Pierre’s horror the normal menu had had to make way for Bat Burgers, Pumpkin Eye Pie and Scary Soup. He had thrown a hissy fit and refused to cook, complaining that if any of his fellow Michelin-starred friends heard about this, he would be an industry laughing-stock. Jack, mindful of keeping his star attraction happy, had given Pierre the night off and pulled in his deputy head chef Sammy instead.

  While her parents had been running around downstairs preparing for the party, Stacey Turner had been upstairs trying on her costume. A few of the local lads she fancied were coming tonight – but she also wanted to show that Jed Bantry exactly what he was missing out on. Stacey had decided to go as Elvira, Mistress of the Dark. Her blonde hair was covered by a waist-length, straight black wig and she’d spent an hour on each eye perfecting the Gothic, catlike make-up. Then there was the dress. Put simply, if Stacey had gone out in any town centre that night wearing it she would have been arrested for causing a public disturbance. Made of purple velvet, it was a long, floor-skimming creation that indecently hugged every overripe curve of her body. Two thigh-length slits either side gave a flash of her lacy black knickers every time she reached for a glass, but the pièce de résistance was the neckline. It was so low and plunging, a drop-jawed male could see a flash of a nipple if he waited long enough. Finally, just in the almost impossible event her chest wasn’t getting enough attention, Stacey had added a long, blood-red pendant that nestled glittering in her cleavage like the Holy Grail. As she looked in the mirror in her bedroom for the umpteenth time, she felt very pleased with the outfit indeed.

  Her father had other ideas. ‘Bugger me, you are NOT wearing that!’ he croaked in shock as she sashayed down at seven o’clock that night to start behind the bar. Jack, in a pirate’s hat and Beryl’s eyeliner, was giving the bar a last wipe down. He was dressed as his namesake Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean, while his wife, in a large pointy hat and swishing black gown, looked maturely delectable and witch-like.

  ‘I so am!’ said Stacey testily to her father. ‘What’s wrong with it?’

  ‘You might as well be topless with a flashing sign above your head saying “Look at my tits!” ’ he told her hotly. ‘Beryl, she can’t serve punters looking like this. We’re not a bleeding knocking shop!’

  His wife came bustling around the corner, bags of coins for the till in her hands. She cast a quick, practised eye over her daughter. ‘I think she looks pretty, Jack,’ she said. Stacey flashed a triumphant glance at her father, but he was standing firm
.

  ‘We are not opening until you go and put something more decent on,’ he told her.

  ‘Daaad!’ Stacey stamped her foot, bottom lip starting to wobble. She turned to Beryl. ‘Mum, tell him!’

  Beryl knew to expect an all-out screaming match if she didn’t defuse the situation. She stepped forward and tugged Stacey’s dress up a few inches. ‘There, that’s better! Stace, if I see you pulling that neckline down there’ll be trouble for you, my girl.’ Beryl turned to Jack. ‘She hasn’t got time to go and change now, so please just leave it,’ she said soothingly. ‘Besides, we don’t want her in a sulk all night, frightening off the customers.’

  Jack sighed; he knew when he was losing a battle. ‘If I see those knockers hanging out over the bar, there’ll be no tips for you tonight,’ he warned Stacey.

  ‘Yes, Dad,’ she said obediently, the spark in her eye suggesting otherwise.

  Beryl checked her watch. ‘Blimey, it’s ten past. We’d better get the doors open.’

  By nine o’clock the place was packed. It seemed the whole village and beyond had turned out. Even Devon had been cajoled by Nigel into coming along.

  ‘I don’t like things like that,’ Devon had told his PA when he had suggested it earlier that day.

  ‘Oh come on, party-pooper,’ Nigel had said, a firm look on his face. ‘It will be good for you to mix with the locals, especially with the ball coming up.’

  ‘Don’t remind me,’ Devon had replied gloomily. Everything had gone like a dream for him up until now, but he was starting to have a nasty attack of nerves. Several times over the last fortnight, Devon had woken from an awful nightmare in which he was playing in front of the Queen at the ball, but every time he opened his mouth to sing, the nursery rhyme ‘The Grand Old Duke of York’ came out instead. At breakfast, exhausted and hollow-eyed, he had recounted his fears to Nigel. ‘What if it’s an omen? What if it’s someone’s way of saying I’m going to be the biggest fuck-up in music history?’ Of course Nigel had told him he’d be no such thing and he was bound to be feeling a bit nervous, but privately even Nigel had been having doubts. Was Devon ready for something like this again? He’d always suffered from performance anxiety, but Nigel had never seen his boss so jittery.