Free Minis

Arnold Layne practised his profession with scrupulous attention to detail for more than 20 years.

He lived quietly, his home was an unassuming semi detached house in the suburbs of London, he cleaned his car at the weekends, kept his garden beautifully tended, and dressed in an understated, English style. To his neighbours and those he mixed with at the local bowls club, he was an unremarkable man.

To those who sought his professional services, he was known as “The Milkman” a nickname derived from his habit of taking one pint of blood as a trophy from each of his victims which he stored, neatly catalogued in the loft of his home.

Arnold’s intended victims were never aware until it was too late and his exacting attention to detail, insulated his clients from the crime they had commissioned.

His most recent job had gone well, the victim had succumbed in moments and Arnold took his trophy. To guarantee the anonymity of his clients, he had to make the body disappear using a stolen van which would be found later, burnt out on a patch of wasteland.

Mary Symonds was walking home from the Women’s Institute and saw him stowing the body in his van. Had she simply walked on by, there would have been no consequence but as a decent woman, she asked Arnold if the person in the van was unwell.

Her body joined the first victim and Arnold took his second trophy of the night.

The first body disposed of, Arnold left Mary’s body in an open area expecting the police conclusion that she had been killed in a robbery gone wrong.

Weeks of investigation left Detective Inspector Scanlon with suspicions that Mary’s death was the work of The Milkman. The missing pint of blood was the tell-tale clue but there was no conclusive proof.

Mary’s loving husband Geoff, was an ordinary man, an electronics genius with an extensive scientific background whose gentle and quiet life had revolved around her. His deep mourning for her masked the cold anger within, not relieved by Scanlon’s hollow assurance that he would, one day, arrest The Milkman.

Endless hours on the dark web found the references that Geoff was looking for, narrowing down the possibilities to just two suspects. One was ex-forces and lately a soldier for hire but had been on a clandestine job abroad for a City corporation at the time of Mary’s death.

The other was an unremarkable man who played bowls and kept a perfect house in the suburbs. Geoff watched him for weeks, hacked his computer and his phones until an overheard conversation for a new job confirmed that Arnold was his quarry.

The quiet of the bowls club car park gave Geoff a few minutes of undisturbed access to Arnold’s car to install the device, but to prevent any unwanted injury to innocent passers by, he waited for a few days until it was parked on Arnold’s drive before remotely arming it.

As Arnold started the car to go shopping, the explosion destroyed the car, flattened the carefully tended garden and removed the services of the The Milkman from the underworld forever.

The sweet and sour taste of revenge filled Geoff’s mouth.

The view in every direction was a desert of green. Andalucia has four million olive trees under monoculture making the scenery devoid of interest.

In the late Autumn, I left our cortijo before the morning sun had risen over the ridge surrounding us and walked in peaceful solitude to the bottom of the dry valley. The dogs loved their daily exercise, stopping to sniff faint traces of nocturnal creatures and disturbing the occasional red-legged partridge which glided noisily through the trees to safety.

The previous evening, whilst enjoying a cool drink as the sun set behind the mountain, we discussed what we would do if we weren’t living in the middle of an olive grove, halfway up a mountainside in rural Spain. We decided that we really should buy lottery tickets to finance our imagined, new lifestyle when a light plane which appeared to be having difficulty, flew low over the valley with it’s engine faltering. Out of our sight, its engine picked up again, it soared and flew on, restoring peace to our little corner of heaven

The next morning, I arrived at the river bed and followed the dogs in their adventure along its rocky path. Spike, our lead dog suddenly barked, his tail vigorously wagging as he looked over the edge of the eroded river bed. At the bottom of the cutting was a man’s body, lying bloodied and misshapen, oddly twisted across the rocks. I climbed down to see if he was alive but he was icy cold even though the morning was pleasantly warm.

Lying next to his body was a small knapsack with one strap around a misshapen arm. Bundles of used banknotes spilled out, a mix of 500 and 200 Euro notes, neatly bound with rubber bands.

Who was he? A drug dealer who had fallen out with his accomplices or was he trying to escape kidnappers?

I couldn’t tell.

A moment’s consideration of the consequences and I slung the knapsack over my shoulder, called the dogs and made my way back to the farmhouse, stopping off at the barn to conceal the life changing treasure in the loft.

That night it rained.

In the mountains of Granada Province it doesn’t shower gently, it pours down like a fireman’s hose. Huge amounts of water are deposited on the hillsides forming rivulets which carve their way through the loose clay soil towards the Summer parched river beds. The gathered water heads thunderously downstream, carrying soil, rocks, broken olive branches and other debris, to be lost in the largest lake in Andalucia nearby.

Two days later the clouds were a memory and the sun had started to bake the hillsides again when I took the dogs on their daily walk down the valley side to the now freshly scoured and drying river bed. There were no traces of its previous, broken occupant.

Months passed watching and waiting for the reaction which never arrived, quiet visits to bankers and money changers, a buyer for our cortijo and eventually, a return to England to start a previously dreamed of, new life in the anonymous surroundings of a Dorset village.

That comfortable life was ensured by regular, guilt free transfers of money from an anonymous, offshore bank account.

It was the fourth year since DNA had been taken from the egg discovered in the Indonesian temple, and the new age of the dragons was born.

People generally accepted that dragons had as much right as they to inhabit the Earth, and, for their part, the dragons only took the occasional cow or sheep, leaving humans to continue their lives unharmed.

There had been no big fires of dragon origin for over two years so most people felt very protective of them, stopping to stare as they flew overhead, or taking their children to see them when they landed in the local park or field.

But Excalibur was different...

He had been born of the Arthurian genetic line at the cloning laboratory in Wiltshire, England. However, one of the researchers experimented with a slight alteration to his genome in an effort to add friendliness, an error which resulted in Excalibur having, shall we say, a mischievous sense of humour.

He would "accidentally" set fire to the odd tree or thatched roof and fly off in exaggerated loops and dives, emitting a pulsating roar like a laugh. It was a problem for fire brigades and insurance companies, but his reputation as the lovable bad boy of the dragon world, struck a chord with the public.

One of his fans was George Blake, a special forces soldier who usually executed his orders with cold efficiency. His commanding officer summoned him,

‘Our orders are to dispose of Excalibur and your team is our best hope, Major Blake.’

‘Dispose of him, Sir?’

‘His behaviour has upset the wrong people this time and they want him gone.’

‘Just gone, Sir?’ George asked innocently.

There was a brief pause,

‘My orders were quite clear Major, they state that Excalibur is to be stopped from causing any more damage in England, by any means necessary.’

‘My discretion, Sir?’

’Just get it done, George. As few casualties as possible,’ he winked as he returned George’s salute.

George’s team also agreed with the publics' feelings towards their quarry so their simple plan was to trap Excalibur in his lair just North of Swindon and then head West in a covered truck at the dead of night to meet up with some of George’s old friends.

They arrived at the commune in Wales in the early morning, and Excalibur was unloaded into his temporary compound. Via social media, they leaked the story of his mysterious appearance on their farm, slyly suggesting that as a dragon, he obviously preferred Wales to England.

For his part, Excalibur seemed very comfortable with his new audience of followers, probably helped by the numbers of Welsh flags flown from the commune’s buildings and it only took a few days for him to settle. Once freed, he flew the skies above Wales, and with most roofs covered with slate, his continuing mischief was mainly reserved for the odd tree or road sign.

However, he did like to eat lamb...

Linda looked in the mirror and held her greying hair up above her head. Her lined face was visible proof of her life’s experiences although her fading, blue eyes still had a sparkle, hinting at her defiantly mischievous side.

Never concerned that it would have to end at some time, she still had the desire to live life to the full, to disrupt the status quo, to live outside of society’s expectations. She instructed Alexa to play Led Zeppelin.

‘Alexa, louder!’

‘Alexa, louder.’

The notes reverberated through her body, entering her core, reviving memories of stadiums and muddy fields from another time.

Perhaps just one more festival, she thought.

The ticket, although costly, was easily manageable, the private yurt eye-wateringly expensive but offering her a retreat if she needed an island of calm away from the chaos. A long, hippy dress recovered from an almost forgotten box in the attic along with some hand made jewellery she had received as a tribute from an aging, Californian artisan many years before, combined to enhance her fading beauty.

The festival goers gave her admiring smiles. The young women striking up conversations, perhaps seeing their future selves in her outward expression of freedom and hope, the young men regarding her with suppressed desire and longing, fearful of her experience but intrigued by her abandon and playfulness.

The music was loud, very loud and mostly not to her taste. She needed the driving bass and the soaring virtuosity of past rock gods who knew how to play, even when chemically enhanced. She wandered from stage to stage until at last, there they were, playing her music, as old as she and with their silver hair flowing in the wind from the cooling fans.

She lost herself in the moment, resurrecting the young woman who danced as if nobody was watching.

But someone was watching.

The young man also appreciated 50 year old rock played by practised masters from a time before he was born. To him she wasn’t an anachronism, she wasn’t even old, just someone who loved the music he adored and who wasn’t scared to lose herself in it. He danced over to her, laughing, not at her refusal to accept her years but, at her ability to ignore how others saw her.

Exhausted from their exertions and high on the atmosphere at the end of the set, they sat under a tree and shared an overpriced beer.

‘You’re not sleeping in the open, are you?’ he asked uncertainly.

‘I have a yurt,’ she said. ’Do you want to see how old people sleep at festivals?’

He grinned sheepishly. ’You can’t be old because you like the best music.’

‘Right answer,' she said emphatically as she took his hand and led him towards her island of calm.

He said that it might be hazardous but I needed the money. What’s a few long range photos of a celebrity anyway?

The two goons dragged me out of the hedge and frog marched me into the brightly lit kitchen where they zip tied me to a chair and left me to contemplate my immediate future.

She sashayed into the room, hair bouncing above her fabulous body, 

‘Did those naughty people at the studio send you to take photos so that they can get out of the contract?’ she breathed.

I stammered that I was just asked to get some photos of her and her live-in, female companion.

She came right up to my face, leaning forward and giving me a view down the front of her gown. My heart nearly stopped. I had never been this close to fame before or indeed, any woman this stunning.

‘Surely they told you what they needed them for,’ she whispered. She smelled wonderful, like the flower house at the tropical gardens on a warm day. I stared blankly back at her. 

Had she just asked me something?

‘O.K., who at the studio gave you the job?’

My attention was suddenly back in the kitchen and I truthfully told her that I wasn’t given any names but that the retainer had been in cash.

In the world in which a second rate private eye operated, it was best not to ask too many questions as long as everyone paid in cash.

She pulled up a chair, placing it in front of me, turned so that the back was between us, and sat astride it to look me straight in the eyes. I couldn’t concentrate, those beautiful green eyes were mesmeric but the possibility of seeing those fabulous legs parted across the chair was just too tempting for a loser like me.

‘My eyes are up here!’ she suggested.

I felt embarrassed but my curiosity was trying to see around the uprights of the chair back so she reached out and gently took hold of my chin, moving my head to look at her face. Her skin was so soft, her slender fingers so strong and her highly polished nails so sharp.

‘Tell me everything about this job that you were asked to do?’ she coaxed.

My private eye’s resolve melted. The words tumbled out about the sharp suited young man in the expensive limousine who said he needed some special photos for a piece he was writing about a celebrity and that he would pay cash plus a bonus if I got photos of another person living in the house, particularly if they were of this goddess and her companion together.

‘That little weasel,’ she cried out, ‘Not happy that I dumped him, he has to make something up about a dear friend who is living here until she gets her life straightened out.’

At that moment, another attractive, barely clad woman appeared in the kitchen, looked at me with a quizzical expression, shrugged, walked over to the subject of my fantasies and kissed her gently on the lips.

I’ve been growing slowly in this peaceful churchyard for a long time now and, with the help of the birds and animals, casting my offspring into the world so that they too, could find a quiet, undisturbed place to establish and grow.

We don’t get many visitors, mostly sad and preoccupied people who don’t pay much attention to the trees growing here. One summer’s day with the warm air cooling my leaves, a small girl about 8 years old, came through the gate, walked around me touching my trunk with her outstretched fingers and sat under the shade of my branches.

She spoke suddenly,

‘How long have you been here?’

Was she talking to me? I thought.

‘You are very big so it must be a long time,’ she persisted.

‘I have been growing here for well over a hundred years,’ I confirmed.

She didn’t seem surprised at my response.

‘That’s a very long time, when were you planted?’

‘If you look at that gravestone over there with the cross on top and the ivy growing at the base, you can read the date that Albert William George Hancock died. I was planted about the same time.’

She scurried across to read the stone, tracing her fingers along the numbers and called back,

‘It says 8th March 1844 so that makes it,’ she paused thoughtfully, ’180 years. Have you always been this size?’

‘No, I started off as a tiny acorn which sprouted a shoot. I was found and grown in a greenhouse of a big, old house. The gentleman who lived there brought me here to be planted.’

‘Is he buried here?’

'No, he has a special place inside the church because his family and ancestors owned all of the surrounding land and were wealthy enough to have this church built nearly 400 years ago.’

‘They must have been very rich.’

'They were, and the church was built to help the local people who worked for them to keep their faith.’

‘Do you have a faith?’

‘I believe in a greater good that looks after all of us. Some people call it Mother Nature but as a tree, I am just a small part of it.’

‘Not just a small part, you are huge, and my teacher says that trees are our friends because you take the bad air we breath out and turn it into oxygen that we can breath in again. You also store the carbon we produce and use it to grow. Teacher said that you provide food and shelter for the birds and animals. You are providing shade and company for me at the moment which is very nice.’

‘Your teacher seems very wise.’

‘She is and that’s funny because her name is Miss Wise.’

I chuckled and the girl leaned back against my trunk, stretched and then asked,

‘Am I the only person that you have spoken to since you were planted?’

I had to think.

‘There was a young girl well over a hundred years ago. Her name was Lillian and her parents were local, tenant farmers. She was a lovely girl, about your age.’

‘Did she go to school?’

‘Well, the village school wasn’t built until after she had grown up but she did attend Sunday school at the church. She used to visit me afterwards, before her mother came to collect her.’

She pondered my story in silence for a while until a woman’s voice called out.

‘Suzie, where are you?’

‘I’m here Mummy, in the churchyard. This tree has been talking to me.’

‘Of course it has darling but it’s time to go home, now.’

‘Goodbye Suzie,’ I whispered as she stood up and walked away.

Her mother turned and stared suspiciously into the empty churchyard.

If the scruffy bar had been any further from 125th Street in Harlem, it would have been in the Hudson River. I played for drinks, one meal a day and a share of the tips jar. My audience were there for the cheap booze, not the music. I’d play ragtime, boogie, jazz but my first love was the blues, played in the early hours when it touched my soul.

He had been sitting in the corner all night,

'I want you to play at my club, I’ve just lost my piano player to consumption so the job’s yours if you want it.'

I looked suspiciously at this avuncular, Jewish man.

'You will get paid a wage in real money plus two good meals a day but you buy your own drinks or accept them from customers.'

Suspicion allayed, my “When do I start?”, sealed the deal.

I arrived at his basement club the next afternoon to be greeted by the hostess, a blousy woman of undetermined age who hugged me warmly.

'I’m Belle; any problems you come to me, never Mr Weinstein, always me,' she instructed.

'That meat mountain over there is Big Mack. He looks out for all of us but don’t cross him, he can be a mean son-of-a-bitch.'

'The flighty piece is Lulu, hat check girl and waitress. Be careful, she’s one step away from turning tricks.'

'Up there on the stage are the boys, a good bunch but Harry the Sax likes his drugs and other people’s money to buy them.'

They were quietly jamming to themselves. I looked around the club, it was dimly lit, smelled of stale tobacco and booze but with a familiar aroma coming from Harry’s reefer.

The piano was an upright that had seen better days but it was well tuned and as the boys paused, judging me, I launched into a boogie. They hit the groove as if we had been playing for years.

Around 9:00 pm, customers started drifting in, mostly small groups who were there to talk, listen to the music and make shady deals. I noticed Belle greet everyone as an old friend whilst Lulu took their hats and coats, flirting with them all.

Big Mack’s baleful eyes noted her every move.

I was high on the music even though the customers were generous with the drinks.

Around midnight, Mr Weinstein came through the door accompanied by a stunning woman in her 30s. She sashayed over to the stage, stood behind the mike and started to scat the jazz number we were playing. She never missed a beat, eventually launching into a song that silenced the hubbub.

Her glistening, black hair fell across her flawless, espresso skin and when she smiled, her perfect, white teeth lit up the room. Her gloriously earthy, alto voice stirred my soul and by the end of the set, I was smitten.

Backstage she spoke,

‘I’m Maisie, do you know Wasted Life Blues?'

'Does a dog have fleas?' I countered with a grin. I was in heaven contemplating playing one of Bessie Smith’s originals.

This unlikely duo went back on stage, leaving Harry to roll his next muggle. A sprinkling of applause quieted as I started the intro and when Maisie opened her mouth, Bessie was on stage with me as I drifted onto a higher plane.

She finished the number, and, gliding over to me, whispered in my ear as her perfume invaded my lungs.

'Don’t Cry Baby?'

I played the first few bars as her voice silenced the room, continuing until the boys reappeared.

The night was electric, and at the bar, Mr Weinstein’s broad grin signalled that the club’s new piano player was now a member of the family.

The box was very ordinary.

Made from teak with metal bindings and a lock of old brass.

He turned the key in the lock and opened the lid.

The smell of cedar wood and dust assailed his nostrils.

The inside of the box was plain, no dividers, no ribs and no marks to suggest previous contents.

His scientist’s mind considered the box for some time until the sound of his housekeeper’s voice interrupted his thoughts.

'Is the cat upstairs with you, Mr Schrodinger?'