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  EAT LOCAL

  Danny King

  A Wild Wolf Publication

  Published by Wild Wolf Publishing in 2017

  Copyright © 2017 Danny King

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publishers, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed by a newspaper, magazine or journal.

  First print

  All Characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  E-Book Edition

  ISBN: 978-1-907954-64-1 (paperback)

  www.wildwolfpublishing.com

  “Because I could not stop for death he kindly stopped for me.

  The carriage held but just ourselves – and immortality”

  – Emily Dickinson (1830-86)

  For Rod Smith, Jason Flemyng and everyone else who stood out in the cold dark woods in the winter of 2016 and finally brought this story to life. To the cast and crew of Eat Local. With thanks.

  ALSO BY THE AUTHOR

  BOOKS

  The Burglar Diaries

  The Bank Robber Diaries

  The Hitman Diaries

  The Pornographer Diaries

  Milo’s Marauders

  Milo’s Run

  School for Scumbags

  Blue Collar

  More Burglar Diaries

  The Henchmen’s Book Club

  Infidelity for Beginners

  The Executioners

  The Monster Man of Horror House

  The No.1 Zombie Detective Agency

  Dating By Numbers

  FILM

  The Hitman Diaries (2009) – short

  Wild Bill (2012)

  Eat Local (2017)

  Run Run As Fast As You Can (2017) – short

  TELEVISION

  Thieves Like Us (2007)

  STAGE

  The Pornographer Diaries: the play

  Killera Dienasgramata (Latvia)

  CHAPTER 1

  The Fox was hungry.

  He hadn’t fed for three straight days and the pit in his empty belly compelled him to range further this night, away from the safety of his burrow and into the shadows of winter.

  A prolonged cold snap had decimated his diet. All the mice, voles and frogs he normally ate had disappeared, some tucked up underground to wait out the frost while others hadn’t been so lucky. But the fox couldn’t wait until spring. He was hungry now. He had to feed.

  Desperate times called for desperate measures and so the fox found himself pacing the perimeter of the farm before him. Beyond the wire, in the large wooden barns beyond the farmhouse, hundreds of fat succulent chickens roosted in warm straw away from the cold. The fox wasn’t greedy. He only wanted one: just one out of the hundreds and hundreds the Thatchers kept for themselves and he would be on his way. Would that be so bad? If he kept quiet, if he snuck in and out with a minimum of disruption, snatched a chicken by the throat and dragged it out into the night, how would they even know he’d been?

  The barn was packed to the rafters with poultry so the Thatchers couldn’t possibly know how many chickens they had. What difference would one less make?

  The fox was a silent killer. He hunted with stealth and with cunning. And he only took what he needed. He usually wanted for nothing, just the right to live, the same as those he shared his territory with.

  And yet his neighbours despised him. They laid traps to snare him; searched the hills to gas him out of his burrow; chased him through the woods with packs of dogs to tear him to pieces and blasted him on sight with their shotguns. How many of his kin had he lost that way, their blood daubed across their exultant killers’ faces?

  Well it wouldn’t happen to this fox. He was more cautious than most, more fleet-footed. He would only make his move when he was sure he would not be seen. And as quickly as he had struck, he would sink back into the shadows dragging his supper with him.

  And so the fox waited. He waited for Mrs Thatcher to finish swinging her hatchet in the barn. He waited for Mr Thatcher to stop digging his pit in the yard. And he waited for the chickens in the barn to close their eyes and go to sleep.

  He waited and watched and readied himself. But just as the Thatchers were about to turn in for the night a set of headlights lit up the farm approach and chased the fox back into the shadows.

  The car stopped just short of the farm and Mr Thatcher reappeared at the door. He asked the visitor what he wanted and the visitor told him as succinctly as he could that he required this place for the night. He was seeing some friends and they had arranged to meet here. For most people, stopped short of their beds by a taciturn trespasser, this might have seemed like a strange request but Mr Thatcher didn’t seem unduly put out. Indeed he seemed oddly animated at the thought of people – perfect strangers – coming to his farm this evening.

  Mr Thatcher asked the visitor who his friends were but the visitor merely shrugged and promised all would be revealed in the fullness of time.

  At this point Mrs Thatcher appeared behind her husband, half lurking at his back and half behind the door. She whispered something into her husband’s ear and he gave his assent with a wrinkled smile.

  The Thatchers now stepped aside and bid the visitor across their threshold. The visitor accepted their kind invitation and squeezed past the two of them. The door closed and a few moments later the lights went out.

  The fox continued to watch and wait. He heard several strange sounds but soon all fell quiet. This was the chance he’d been waiting for. This was his moment.

  The fox slipped out of the bushes and hurried across the open terrain. The clear starry skies and silvery moon sent his long black shadow chasing across the field behind him. It disappeared the moment he did, beneath the floor of the barn and all at once it was as though he was never there. He could smell his prey on the other side of the planks. He could smell them but they could not sense him. The coop was too crowded, too busy. Their minds were elsewhere. They had no idea of the danger beneath them.

  All he needed was a gap in the boards or some rot he could claw his way through but he could find neither. The barn was secure. And so, for the moment, were its inhabitants.

  The fox’s ears pricked again.

  The front door of the farmhouse had opened and someone stepped out. The fox heard footsteps crunching across the gravel courtyard towards where he was skulking and drew too close for comfort. The footsteps stopped next to the barn. The fox held his breath. Slowly, the footsteps began to pace backwards and forwards along the length of the barn until the fox heard a sound that struck him with terror – the cocking of a shotgun.

  Forsaking his supper he ran for his life, scurrying out from his hiding place and sprinting across open ground.

  He readied himself for the agonising rip of red-hot shot and damned the cold weather for forcing him to take such desperate measures, but to his surprise and great relief no gun blast came.

  The fox made it to the treeline but he didn’t know how. Finally he dared a backwards glance and saw not the Thatchers as he had expected, but their mysterious guest who had come calling tonight.

  The fox couldn’t see his eyes as they were shielded behind dark glass, but he had a feeling they could see him, even crouched where he was in the blackness of night.

  The man swung the Thatchers’ shotgun over his shoulder and started walking the perimeter, glancing in the fox’s direction every now and then until a new set of headlights swept across the farm.

  The fox had a sneaky feeling that this was not going to be his night. He sank further into the shadows, slipped through the barbed wire fence and decided to try a
different approach. He may have been hungry and leaving empty handed but at least he would live to hunt another day.

  Which was more than could be said for most of the Thatchers’ uninvited guests tonight.

  *

  The sound of bootsteps running through the brush startled the fox a few moments later. There was someone else out here besides the Thatchers’ visitor and he sounded more spooked than the fox.

  “Base control, come in, over,” the man was saying over and over again, even though there was no one with him to hear. “Base control, I need immediate assistance, over!”

  Still there came no response provoking a flurry of expletives that almost singed the fox’s ears off.

  “Base control, is anyone there, for Christ’s sake, over?”

  Finally a tinny voice replied into the man’s ear as he ran.

  “This is base control, identify yourself, over,” the voice requested.

  “This is 18,” the man replied, dispensing with the pleasantries. “I saw it. I acquired our target, over.”

  The fox wasn’t to know but 18 wasn’t referring to him. Kitted out as he was in the Special Ops blacks, with silenced sub-machinegun sidearm, night vision goggles, kevlar body armour and combat knife it would’ve seemed a little heavy handed to take on just a fox. Then again, so did 40 thoroughbred horses, 60 pedigree hounds and as many inbred aristocrats as his Lordship could rustle up and that had never stop anyone before.

  So the fox took no risks. He kept his head low, his eyes open and his nose to the wind as he watched 18 run past.

  “Is he tracking you now?” the tinny voice asked 18’s ear.

  “I don’t know. Maybe. Probably. I’ve got to get out of here,” 18 replied, thrashing blindly through the foliage in no particular direction.

  “Take a deep breath and calm down,” the voice suggested. “Stop where you are count to five.”

  “I’d rather not if it’s all the same to you,” 18 replied, dropping strict military protocol in favour of all out sass.

  “Do it now, 18!” the voice insisted, not one to take no for an answer, particularly not from newcomers to the unit.

  “Negative sir. He’s probably right behind me,” 18 insisted.

  “Do it now soldier. That’s an order. Stop and count to five.”

  With supreme reluctance 18 stopped running and began instead to count.

  “One… two… three…”

  “In your head, 18,” the voice reminded him. 18 went quiet and mentally ticked off the last two numbers, albeit with a little silent lip-syncing.

  “Well? Are you still there?” the voice asked.

  18 pinched himself to double check and confirmed, “Yes sir, it seems so”.

  “Then he’s not tracking you,” the voice informed him.

  “How do you know? How can you tell?” 18 demanded.

  “You got to five, didn’t you?” the voice pointed out.

  Even in the near darkness the fox could see the colour drain from 18’s cheeks. That the voice on the other end of the line could’ve been so cavalier with his life was something the seasoned soldier wouldn’t forget. He was a military man through and through, having served with the British army in three different theatres of operations but this was different. This was no mere combat. It was inhuman. Evil incarnate. He had pledged his loyalty to the Colonel when he’d joined his unit. But he hadn’t done so just to serve as his canary. Death found all men eventually. But when it came for 18 it was going to have to look a little harder than usual.

  “Now here’s what I want you to do, 18. I want you to return to where you acquired the target and set up a beacon. We will be with you as soon as we can, but you reacquire our target and this time you don’t let it out of your sight. Do you understand? Over.”

  “Negative sir, I can rendezvous with you at the roadside and walk you back across country to the location. I need back-up to approach the target. Over.”

  “You’re starting to get my back up, 18. Now grow some balls and do your job. Or else you’ll have me to contend with it we lose this opportunity. And I’m not a man who takes disappointment on the chin.”

  18 tried to shake the image of his balls and the Colonel’s chin from his mind while he weighed up his options. It was one thing retreating whilst under fire. It was quite another to refuse to enter the fray in the first place.

  18 took a deep breath and confirmed, “Understood, Colonel. Over and out.”

  He turned to head back up the dirt track he’d just sprinted down when a shape darted out in front of him. 18 levelled his SMG and was about to squeeze the trigger when the shape registered with him.

  It was a fox. It was just a country fox. And it was staring down the barrel of his gun, caught as he was in the glare of his laser sights.

  18 lowered his weapon and breathed a sigh of relief. The fox seemed to sigh with relief too and then a moment later it was gone. The fox went his way and 18 went the other, each shaken and stirred but still in the game.

  For the time being.

  CHAPTER 2

  As Sebastian well knew, all truly great adventures started with a journey, and this weekend’s adventure had been no different. He’d caught the Friday night commuter train from London Bridge, changed at East Croydon, changed again at Three Bridges and changed one final time at Horsham before admitting to himself that he had no idea where he was.

  He left the train where instructed and took a moment to ponder the sign. It read “Christ’s Hospital”. Sebastian had never heard of the place but figured it sounded like a pretty good hospital if they could get Jesus back on his feet after all he’d been through.

  No other passengers stepped off the packed commuter train – always a sure sign of a thriving metropolis – and with a blast of the station master’s whistle and a beep-beep-beep of the doors, the train eased back out of the station to leave Sebastian marooned in deepest darkest Sussex.

  “Any boozers near here?” Sebastian asked the Station Master.

  “Only me,” he replied with a nip of his hip flask before disappearing back into the warmth of his control booth.

  Just as he’d feared. Sebastian was no fan of the countryside. He didn’t mind it on postcards but in the flesh it was a little too far from the nearest Wetherspoons for his liking.

  Fortunately, Sebastian was a man of great resources. He’d bought a four pack of beers at London Bridge and with Churchillian foresight had saved the last can for just such an emergency. On leaving the station he found a convenient kerb on which to perch and reached for his bag. The can was still there, between his change of socks and his spare pants, and it was still acceptably tepid. He plucked the ringpull, sprayed his hand with froth and gave it a loving kiss. Job done.

  Sebastian looked at the station clock. It was a little before nine. She’d be here soon. And he couldn’t wait.

  What a woman Vanessa was. Of that there was no doubt. But what she saw in a mere slip of a lad like Sebastian was open to speculation. Late thirties, divorced, attractive and obviously minted, Vanessa was the very definition of a femme fatale, or to use a term that was generally preferred by the lads on Sebastian’s cleaning crew, she was a “right saucy MILF”.

  As an orphan, Sebastian had no mother to compare her to, incestuously or otherwise, so perhaps deep down the lads were right and Vanessa appealed to him in a Freudian sense, filling a void he’d carried with him since childhood. Or perhaps it was just because she was minted. Hmm, the more Sebastian thought about it, the more he had to conclude that this was probably the answer.

  Sebastian had known only hardship and toil his whole darn life. Born and raised in an orphanage, no one to take care of him, Christmas presents courtesy of the odd charity organisation (when they could afford them) and now a bright future stretching out before him cleaning the toilets of stock brokerage firm in the city, Sebastian was not averse to the idea of a weekend away with a sugar mommy. No one could say he didn’t deserve it. Even the lowliest of London’s underclasses w
ere due a break every now and again.

  Sebastian worked the night shift. When the traders left for the champagne bars of Bishopsgate, Sebastian and his fellow contractors moved in the mop up the ‘champagne’ they’d sprayed all over the floors of their executive bathrooms. It was grim work but somebody had to do it – and for less than the national minimum wage it seemed — but as Sebastian and his colleagues were often reminded by their supervisor, “If you don’t want the job there are ten blokes coming into Dover this very night who do”. Mr Kelsey’s motivational skills might have left a lot to be desired but he had a point. Beggars could not be choosers, not in this life anyway, and Sebastian was under no allusion as to his long-term career prospects having flunked out of school at 16 (damn grammar), the army at 18 (damn medical), the Prince’s Trust at 21 (damn zero tolerance drugs policy) and the music scene at 23 (damn no talent).

  Sebastian was now 26. Most of the guys his age were making their marks in life – and all up the walls and over the seats for Sebastian to clean up, it seemed – but Sebastian himself was going nowhere fast. And he knew it.

  Working in a brokerage firm had actually appealed to Sebastian. He thought he might glean something as he went along but all he’d gleaned so far was that his life was even shitter than he’d first suspected. The money the ‘suited-and-booted’ brigade earned was eye-watering, offensive, disgusting even, and yet none of it crumbled Sebastian’s way. You might’ve thought an executive on £25K a month with a £250,000K twice-annual bonus might’ve left the guy who cleaned his piss up every night the odd £20 tip for a job well done and yet all they ever left was more piss. And shit. And massive toilet paper blockages. It was enough to prompt even the most reasonable of men into voting for Jeremy Corbyn.

  But then he met Vanessa. He didn’t know what she did but she worked at nights too, to take advantage of the Asian markets she’d said. He never actually saw her at a computer screen or in any of the offices. He’d just pass her in the corridors or occasionally ride up the lift with her. She was one of the few people who ever actually acknowledged Sebastian, and not just to tell him about a skid-mark he’d missed on the outside of the bowl. She was kind, pleasant and very very alluring. She had amazing eyes, almost hypnotically beautiful: the sort of eyes that could see into a person’s soul. At least that’s how Sebastian felt.