Stakeholder Engagement

6

Stakeholder Engagement

The next morning I called Beverley as soon as the sun touched the front of the cowshed – she wasn’t best pleased.

‘If you’re going to stay,’ I said, ‘you’re going to work.’

She was waiting for me in the gravel car park behind the Swan in the Rushes, wearing a pair of high-waisted khaki army trousers and a purple T-shirt with the words I’M FROM HERE STUPID written across the chest. In one hand she had what I learnt later was a genuine army surplus gas mask case, and in the other a mug of coffee.

I opened the passenger door and gestured her in.

‘Just a sec,’ she said, and drained her mug. Then, holding it straight out towards the inn, she called out a name.

A young blonde photographer in skinny jeans and a red sweatshirt trotted out of the inn, smiled, took the mug and trotted back in. I gave Beverley the stare when she got in the car, but she just ignored me.

‘You’re not supposed to do that,’ I said.

‘If you’re going to get me up this early in the morning, then you don’t get to complain when I smooth off some of the rough edges.’

I started up the Asbo and pulled out of the car park.

‘How did you get a room there, anyway?’ I asked. ‘I heard it was rammed.’

‘Oh,’ said Beverley, ‘the nice lady from Sky News let me have her room.’

‘Just like that?’

‘Not just like that, actually,’ said Beverley. ‘I had to ask twice! I hate being this far from the Thames Valley.’

After a moment she said, ‘Where are we going?’

‘I want your professional opinion about someone.’

‘My profession in this instance being what?’

‘Goddess of small suburban river in South London.’

She nodded and then reached over to brush the side of my face, which was beginning to swell nicely.

‘When did you do this?’ she asked.

‘Yesterday evening,’ I said. ‘I walked into a tree.’

After finding the phones we still had a couple of hours of daylight, and it wasn’t like the POLSA was going to need us looking over his shoulder. So we’d split up. Dominic went east onto the common with our favourite sexual pervert as guide and I went west into the woods.

‘And you thought that was clever,’ said Beverley.

‘It’s a National Trust property,’ I said. ‘It’s not like there were going to be giant spiders. The locals call it Fairy Wood. So I had to check it, didn’t I?’

‘You think they were abducted by fairies?’

‘I don’t even know if that’s a thing,’ I said.