The Easter Egg Hunt – X

Since Ben and Joss Beckett took over The Fair Maid and Falcon, they have had to deal with ghosts, gangsters and well dodgy goings-on. Despite that they have their own family of twin daughters and dogs, and a fabulous ‘found family’ of friends. Life seems to be going well when…

Things were surprisingly quiet for a few days. By which I mean the pub was buzzing, but the bad guys were keeping a low profile. Our updated security included a set of panic buttons in strategic places, rather a lot of cameras, and some ordinary objects carefully modified for self defence. These reminded me of a certain weighted baseball bat with which Morgan disabled a woman who was about to shoot me dead. I didn’t know whether to smile or cry, so I put it to the back of my mind and got on with being busy.
Along with the electronic and inanimate additions we also acquired some impressive muscle. Four big lads, called Andrew, John, Pete, and Simeon, moved into the bothy and made themselves useful busing tables, washing glasses, and driving the big mop that deals with spills and accidental messes. I watched them carefully for a couple of days and was satisfied that they’d be an asset come any trouble, but until then they were content to blend in, and work hard.
After a particularly fractious Sunday lunch, when it seemed that every argumentative woman who wanted to see the manager, and every bratty, undisciplined toddler, had been squeezed together in our beer garden, I found the biggest of the boys, who I was almost sure was Simeon, sitting next to me at the big table in the private garden where we were having the staff scoff that signals pub closed until Monday evening. He grinned at me and applied himself to a vast plate of roast lamb. Judging him to be of the ilk that deals with the inner man before speaking, I ate my own meal and kept an eye on my twin daughters, who were inhaling lunch and twinkling at the assembled company. With his plate cleaned the young giant leaned back in his chair .
“Mrs Beckett,” his voice was almost unfeasibly deep.
“Joss please. I never quite know who Mrs Beckett is.”
He rewarded this sally with a chuckle before turning serious. “I bet you know exactly who she is. Just like I’d be willing to put a few bob on you and your man knowing precisely what goes on right across the business.”
“Rumbled. I just don’t like to make an issue of it.”
“Fair enough. But whatever the cause, this place runs like clockwork.”
“We try. Keep an overview and make sure everyone has a defined job.”
“And gets on with it. Which they do. I’m by way of being good friends with Morgan, so I was glad to pull this assignment. I wanted to see why she thinks so highly of you both.”
“And now?”
“Now I do see. And I’m bloody impressed. There’s a few fools around the company who think you and Mark are doing the dirty. I was never one of them, and now I see you and Ben together it becomes even more obvious that’s a crock of shit.”
“But?”
“But me and a couple of others believe that old chestnut is liable to raise its head again.”
I sighed. “I expect it will. But I hope Debs knows it’s a falsehood.”
“She does. And Ben?”
“He’s always known it for bullcrap.”
“So that only leaves a couple of impressionable idiots at Brown Brothers. I guess I need a word with Mark.”
“If you have a reason to be concerned, then you do.”
“I wouldn’t call it a reason as much as an itch in my head.”
“That’s the best reason of all. Talk to the man.”
“I will. I’ll call him in the morning. Him having a fixed dislike of being interrupted on a Sunday afternoon.”
Before I could think up a suitable response, an alarm sounded from the ice cream parlour. My companion and his mates were up as if they had been shot. The pelted across the grass and disappeared through the open back door of the building. Ben stood up and stretched. He offered me his arm.
“Shall we pop along and see what’s toward?” He sounded genial enough but there was a set line to his jaw and I knew he was keeping a tight rein on possible rage.
“That seems to me like a good idea.” Then I turned my attention to the twins. “Will Roz and Allie please stay here?”
They nodded. “We will.”
“Excellent people.”
Sian grinned at me. “Go in you two. The gruesomes will be fine with us.”
Roz and Allie turned identical versions of the stink eye on her allowing us to escape without further questioning.
Inside the ice cream parlour three youths were laying face down on the floor. Each one had his hands behind his head and a heavy booted foot in the middle of his back. Morgan stood with her hands on her hips, and the two middle aged women who worked with her leaned against the counter, appearing to be rather more amused than upset.
“What happened, Morg?” Ben asked.
“The last of the lunchtime crowd had spizzled off and we were just having a bit of a cleanup ahead of the afternoon mummies and brats. Carol was wiping finger marks off the window and she saw these characters running across the car park brandishing pick axe handles and trying to look hard. We pushed the panic button and the cavalry arrived in time to intercept them.”
“That’s good. But what about if our boys weren’t close?”
Morgan pulled an aerosol out of her pocket.
“Pepper spray. Courtesy of Dad. Who says he’ll bail me out if I need to use it.”
Unusually for me, I was at a loss for words. I knew I should disapprove, but I wasn’t sure what to say – especially as Morgan had calmly loaded shotguns for me when we were repelling an invasion of particularly unpleasant white supremacist thugs.
Ben rescued me. “I think me and Annie Oakley here will just pretend we never saw that.”
Morgan chuckled, but her voice when she spoke was diamond hard.
“I’d very much like to know what them three think they were up to.”
“Me too.” Ben sounded as accommodating as a hungry grizzly bear.

There will be more from Joss, Ben and their friends, courtesy of Jane Jago, next week, or you can catch up with their earlier adventures in Who Put Her In and Who Pulled Her Out.