Continued…

Despite the considerable lapse of time, please let me assure you that Cameron was rescued fairly sharpish from the stick-wielding granny in Agar Hall and escaped entirely without injury.

He was now to be found in the garage of Cedric’s Stockbroker, along with his canine pals Growler and Scrag and their three Grecon owners who were in a very conspiratorial huddle and speaking in suspiciously hushed tones.

In the midst of their huddle stood a large crate of Scotch whisky, and this was the subject of their furtive confab.

Unbeknownst to the female population of Grecondale, a very exciting but also very secret event was being planned by their men-folk and Rabbie and Antonio had been tasked to procure the liquid refreshment for it.

Thus far, the ‘contraband’ had been secreted in the dark recesses of Cedric’s garage but Cedric believed that last week when they had put it there, they had been glimpsed by his maid Sally from the laundry window and, worried that it was only a matter of time before she spilled the beans to Isla, he had insisted that their stash be relocated A.S.A.P.

Of course, Sally Slack Cabbage (as she was referred to by the rest of Grecondale’s domestic staff), couldn’t give two hoots what her daft old employer was up to and, even if she had known why he and his friends were skulking about with a large crate of whisky, she certainly had no intention of upsetting the applecart where her moody mistress was concerned. An easy life and a sly piece of cake with a cuppa now and then – that was the extent of Sally’s ambitions.

A search was begun for a wheelbarrow to transport the whisky and one was eventually located in Ophelia’s garden in Grecondale-under-Bed, next door to the local garage and this gave the conspirators an idea.

“Any chance of a wee word wi’ Martin, Felix?” Rabbie called to Felix who was busy polishing a rather nice motor on the forecourt.

Felix put down his chamois, glad of an excuse for a rest [and a rare speaking part!] “Aye, ye’ll like as not find ‘im int office, Rabbie lad” said Felix who was a man of the Dales with none of the posh affectation much of the similarly bred folk of Grecondale seemed to suffer from. “Tha’d best tread careful like, ‘e’s bin at them invoices aall marnin’ and ‘es in reet bad fettle.” he warned.

But Felix was being overly pessimistic because Martin, who only had a big pile of invoices to deal with because business had been so brisk of late, was more than happy to see them.

“Come in, gentlemen, come in! Welcome to “the office”!” he said, making little quotation marks in the air around the words “the office”, which puzzled them all because it was his office, but they all knew Martin and his business-speak well and said nothing.

“I take it you’re not here to buy a motor,” he quipped, pointing to the wheelbarrow on the forecourt, “I can see you’ve already got transport, ha ha!” Luckily, they were equally-well acquainted with his awful jokes.

Rabbie, Antonio and Cedric laughed politely [Cameron howled raucously] and they proceeded to tell Martin why they were there.

Martin, who was looking forward to The Event enormously, was happy to oblige.

“Let’s go through to the “business end” of the garage,” he said, employing the annoying air-quotes again and leading them next door to survey the somewhat untidy workshop.

“Felix, my man, we have an important mission: Stack those tyres over there and Rabbie, you bring in “the goods” and pop them behind.” Rabbie turned quickly before he could clock the inevitable hand-gesture again – Martin was a good man, but he could be such twit, the thought to himself.

THE END [FOR NOW…]

© 2018, Zoe. All rights reserved.