hassle up by the Pond . . .’
‘So I hear. University undergraduates hitting people with pickaxe handles. There seems to be something about that Pond, Mr Morgan, that comes between law-abiding citizens and their wits. I shall be profoundly glad when it’s filled in and being used as tennis-courts . . . well, that will be all, for now. I only hope you realize what a very narrow escape you’ve had.’ He didn’t shake hands; he pointedly lowered his head to begin reading a pile of report-forms, and left me to find my own way out.
I got home. Some workman recommended by the police had made my shop door secure with a huge piece of thick plywood. I went upstairs and poured myself a stiff drink, and stared at the little armoured cruiser and the smaller ocean liner, side by side, glinting in the lamplight.
And finally I admitted that something had got into me tonight. Something I’d hardly known before. Something I didn’t like at all. Something I hadn’t felt since I was twelve, in a fight in the school yard. I had wanted, for a little while, to kill.
The thought somehow congealed with an older thought. My feelings of guilt about the silly young fool who had killed himself on the motorbike I’d sold him. Why had death suddenly come into my life, after all these years? All these hardworking peaceful years? Was there really something odd about the Wheatstone Pond?
It was then I noticed the light on my telephone-answering machine was glowing, and pressed the play-back.
It was Hermione. Triumphant.
‘Best bib and tucker tomorrow morning, Jeff. We’ve got a television crew coming. Ten sharp, or so they say. I’ll be round by half-past eight. There’ll be a lot to work out.’
I stared at the machine as if it was the author of all my misfortunes. How on earth had she got the telly people in so quickly? There’d been no mention of them when we parted. I supposed she had contacts, being press officer for the City Toy Museum . . .
But was she mad? The last thing we needed was publicity. We’d have the kids from half of London after us tomorrow night . . .
With a groan, and a curse, I flung myself into bed, to get what sleep I could. Damned conniving woman . . .
Chapter 5
We were all gathered in my lounge for the end of the six o’clock news. Watching the weather forecast quack on, and waiting for the local slot. They’d left their wellies by the door, but my carpet was still getting pretty muddy.
We were the first item; it was beginning to be the silly season, and they must be short of hard stuff. We were introduced by our very own girl-reporter, Bunny Hodkinson, small and blonde and cuddly, with huge innocent blue eyes and the naïve grin of a pretty rabbit. Just the sort any male would open his heart to. I mean, whoever heard of a man-eating rabbit?
There she was, standing on the bank, peering out over the mud. Then she turned to the camera confidingly and said, ‘The Wheatstone Pond is beautiful in summer; but the Wheatstone Pond can be a killer. There have been seven suicides on this spot in the last five years. Now Wheatstone Council have decided its days are numbered. Once it is pumped dry, it will be filled in, and made into tennis-courts.
‘The Pond is being pumped dry by appliances from the London Fire Brigade . . .’
So then we had the station officer, wearing full fire-fighting gear and his lovely big helmet, for no reason any of us could guess at. But he made a big thing of the danger of the mud and slime and the way kids were risking their lives. Ending up, ‘Not a nice death, with your mouth full of mud and your lungs full of green slime.’
One up to Hermione; it would have frightened me off; but would it frighten the kids? Or would it be an excuse for them to play chicken?
We had a few seconds of a girl student with a curvy bottom, crawling along one of the ladders. Then the camera panned on to what we were starting to call the dump. All the useless prams and bikes and children’s tricycles we’d unearthed, that no thief would want to nick. It looked spectacularly horrible, trailing strands of dried grey slime. Then it panned across to Hermione, who was wearing what any chic archaeologist would be