The Nextest Episode

Subtitle: A very big house in the country

I came to several minutes later, to find myself being carried by the lovely Tarquin out to Jonathan’s car, a vintage Toyota Previa in lime green and turquoise. Apparently, as I found out later, it’s camouflage for the terminally colourblind.

We set off shortly after I was bundled unceremoniously on the floor of the car, Tarquin flinging himself bodily atop my inert form. Jonathan then covered us with an old travel rug, that smelt distressingly of Dettol and bakewell tart.

‘Just a precaution,’ he told us cheerily.

I managed to stop myself from pointing out that he’d be a damn site less cheerful if he had some mangy rug stuck over his head when I saw how worried poor Tarquin looked, in the smelly gloom of the back seat footwell.

Fortunately, once we got out onto the open road, we pulled into a service station, where we were able to change out of our rather conspicuous taffeta and crimplene dancing outfits into the clothes that Tarquin had hastily packed whilst I’d been blissfully unaware, passed out on the sofa.

Once suitably attired, we jumped back into the car and sped off in the direction of Jonathan’s country seat. I’d have preferred a whole house myself, but needs must when the devils steals your muesli, as my (slightly mental) granny used to say.

Several hours later, I awoke with a stiff neck from where I’d nodded off in the car. The aroma from the travel rug had combined with Tarquin’s slightly overindulgent use of Brut to create a narcotic gas. Fortunately, Jonathan was impervious to this, as one of his little foibles is to drive in full face mask. We alighted from the car, and found ourselves in front of an imposing mansion house.

‘Impressive frontage Jonathan,’ I remarked.

‘You’re not doing so bad yourself, young lady’, he replied with a wink at Tarquin, who reddened visibly.

We refrained from further banter, as it was getting dark. Dawkins, Jonathan’s butler was waiting by the front door to take our bags and show us to our rooms.

‘I’ve taken the liberty of releasing the hounds, sir, and have switched on all the fences.’

‘Thank you Dawkins, could you also see to Tarquin and Kats? They’ll be bunking in the Taupe Room. Dinner at 8 as usual.’

We followed Dawkins up the magnificent staircase to the first floor, where we were shown into a bedroom so huge we could have played touch snooker in it and still had room for a disco.

We unpacked our meagre belongings, then sat and digested the events of the last day or two. We were just coming up for air when suddenly the alarm sounded and metal grilles descended over all the windows.

Tarquin rushed out into the hallway, to find Dawkins slumped in a corner, with a bullet wound to the leg. We dragged him into our room, where I administered rudimentary first aid, though we had a spot of bother with the recovery position, and ended up just propping him up against the sideboard.

We had no idea if Jonathan had been injured, so one of us had to go and find out. We decided to draw straws, and as my picture was the more realistic of the two, I won. I like to think that my addition of a yokel and a couple of field mice swung things in my favour but I digress. I quickly fashioned some protective clothing from an occasional table and a silver tea tray and edged my way out into the corridor.

The scene was utterly chaotic – the walls were riddled with bullet holes, and the vase at the top of the stairs had been smashed into a million pieces. (Though I can’t verify that, as I didn’t have time to sit and count them all.) A bullet whizzed past my right ear, and I huddled behind the table. Cunningly using the tea tray as a periscope type device, I was able to plot a fairly safe course to the top of the stairs, at which point I was stuck. Until I decided that speed was of the essence and jumped on the tray and slid down the stairs, in an insane parody of the Winter Olympics luge run.

I reached the ground in a matter of seconds, and, after pausing to catch my breath, ran headlong into what I assumed was Jonathan’s study…

You’ll find out what it really was in the next thrilling episode.