New Directions (28)

    The tow path along the Kennet is very pretty even on a teeth rattling morning in December. During the night a heavy layer of frost crystals sprayed everything white. Ice diamonds catching just awake sunlight flashed semaphore signals at me as I walked. It would be a long one.

 Leaving the car slotted in a line of three-dozen commuter’s wheels at Thatcham station, I paid for a day and set off wearing a hiker uniform: boots; gloves; beanie pulled down to my eyes; puffy jacket zipped up to my to my nose and a floppy rucksack. I reckoned it would take a couple of hours to reach Barry Stoke’s narrowboat. It was worth the effort. His converted barge being moored on a bend at an out of the way section of the river miles from the nearest CCTV camera. His reason for being at that location as obvious as mine. 

Barry believed nobody knew about his little man cave. He was wrong, but it suited the few of us who did know to let him keep his secret. He told himself it was for R&R—a bit of fishing—but he mainly used it to hoard anything he thought nefarious enough to be useful in future negotiations. 

It was Thursday, the part of the week where almost no one used launderettes. Tuesday’s were also quiet. Those were the days you’d likely find him in his “craft.” I was prepared to wait. If he was coming it’d be within the next three hours.

Carefully choosing a place in the bushes, I could see the boat and stay out of sight hoping the skills taught to me were still up to scratch. I still had it. Two or three cyclists and a backpacker passed unaware I was there. A couple obviously hot for each other worried me for a minute that they might have a quickie in the undergrowth, but I suppose they thought the ground too hard. 

Eventually my guy breezed up on an e-bike without a care in the world. Setting it on its stand, Barry busied himself unloading small boxes from one of the bike’s pannier bags. I had a pretty good idea what was in them, but that wasn’t what I came for. After he finished and entered the boat I held back for twenty minutes guessing he’d pour himself a whiskey and get comfortable. . . . A relaxed man is a vulnerable one.

‘Good afternoon Mr. Stokes.’ 

When I appeared in the doorway Stokes jumped up and tried to grab something on a shelf over the sink, but he couldn’t on account of being pinned on the deck. His glass went the other way leaving a whiskey smelling wet patch on the meagre couch. With my spare hand I held an IKEA © can opener.

‘Whatchoo gonna do, shoot me with it?’

‘I thought you might like some baked beans on toast, Terry.’

‘Always the smart arse eh? Well at least you got my name right.’ Holding Barry around the back of his neck and my other hand in his armpit I lifted him up and sat his bum in the whiskey patch.

‘Bloody hell that’s wet.’

‘I didn’t wanna waste it Stokesy. We have something to talk about don’t we?’ 

‘Yeah, alright, so I passed it on, blokes gotta make a living. But if I’d known they were fucking animals. . . . I don’t get involved in nothing like that.’

‘You know what I said what happens if I had visit to you again.’ 

Barry looked genuinely terrified, ‘I din’t think you meant it.’

‘You know me better than that, Barry mate.’

‘Yeah, but you’ve retired. Right?

‘I could come back, . . . but how about you give me some answers to my questions . . . gratis of course. Let’s say we’re doing each other a flavour. Huh?’