As she sat in the Queens Hotel lounge drinking her third coffee to sober up before driving back to Bristol, Claire received a phone call from Stephen Bawtree:
Steve: Hello, is that Claire?
Claire: yes, who is this please?
Steve: Steve
Claire: Steve who?
Steve: Bawtree
Claire: what do you want Bawtree
Steve: I was concerned about your inheritance so I thought I would give you a call to see if you made any progress
Claire: why is it that every time I have anything to do with you, I end up regretting it?
Steve: what do you mean? I am trying to help you here. Did you get your inheritance?
Claire: where did you get the idea of the inheritance thing anyway? There is no inheritance and there never was
Steve: you are kidding me!
Claire: yeh right, I am in the mood right now for a bit of kidding! Got any new jokes for me?
Steve: as a matter of fact I do; there is this man…
Claire: STOP! I was being ironic here. Look Bawtree, I have a lot on my mind right now, why don’t you be a good boy and find something else to do?
Steve: I was hoping for some cash injection to bail Sarah out
Claire: the only injection I am likely to give you right now will send you into deep coma for the rest of your miserable days
Steve: I take it from your tone of voice the answer is no
Claire: dah, you got in one!
Steve: but what about my Sarah?
Claire: look, if you want any money from me, you have to do something useful instead of sending me on wild goose chase with weird solicitors
Steve: in that case, I thought you might like to know the production of the iBall Prototype is coming along nicely
Claire: I am not interested in the iBall. No, wait a second; there is something you can do to help. If you want more money you must rush the iBall out as quickly as possible. For everyday you save on bringing out the prototype, you will get more money. Gill Bates wants to bring it to market as soon as possible
Steve: I’ll see what I can do. I have to organise test trials and all that
Claire: You can do all the tests you want but remember, for every day you waste on testing the device, its money out of your own pocket
On Wednesday, Claire travelled back to Newport to meet the letting agents of the small pavilion building opposite the Patent Office. She said she was a landscape photographer who wanted to take pictures of Tredegar Park and the surrounding countryside. Harvey Baggs, the letting agent wondered if she shot people as well as landscapes and Claire said she was seriously considering this option. Claire promised once she moved in, she would take some tasteful pictures of him and his girlfriend and she “wouldn’t dream of charging him anything for the pictures”. Harvey Baggs was delighted and couldn’t do enough to please Claire after that!
After looking around the lodge and inspecting the views from the various windows, Claire declared she was almost convinced the place was ideal for her shooting purposes.
Suddenly, Claire began to feel unwell and had to lean on the helpful letting agent with the cheap brown suit and the overpowering aftershave.
Claire: I am afraid I don’t feel very well
Harvey: oh dear, can I do something?
Claire: would you be kind enough and fetch my bottle of mineral water on the front passenger seat in my car? I need to take my medication straight away
Harvey: not at all, I will be back in a couple of minutes
Claire: oh you are a sweetie; here are my keys, why don’t you leave your things here with me?
Harvey left his clipboard and keys with Claire and went out to get the mineral water as instructed. Claire took out a small box with some material resembling plasticine and took an impression of the key to the lodge’s front door. She closed the box, returned it to her Prada handbag and waited for Harvey to return with the water.
On Thursday, Claire had a key cut at one of those shoe repair shops in Bristol. Dave the cobbler-cum-key-cutter joked by asking her if she was planning a “breaking and entering” gig. Claire smiled sweetly and asked him if he wanted to take part in the heist. When she left, Dave turned to his spotty apprentice and said: “Nice crumpet, eh? She can do breaking and entering into my trousers any time she likes!”. Dave and the spotty apprentice laughed heartily.
On Friday 18 January, Riesling received Claire’s signed copy of the N.O.D. The letter had been re-directed from her old address in the City Centre where Riesling had given the address of her bogus Flaw & Older Solicitors. Walter couldn’t understand Riesling long-term objective with Claire or why Riesling was prepared to fork out £10,000 to a woman who was conspiring against them. Had he been aware of Claire’s attempt to assassinate him, he would have suspected his wife was in collusion with Claire and Gill against him. Riesling had to explain for the umpteen time her tactics: “look pet, first we turn Claire from being Gill’s ally to be his enemy. Then by providing her with funds, we will hopefully give her the means to do something nasty against this diabolical man”. Walter was reassured for the time being.
At 7:00 a.m. on Monday 21 January, while eating two slices of toast covered with Flora and Marmite, Claire drove her rented Nissan Micra from Bristol to Newport and parked at the empty Tesco Extra car park. She opened the boot of the car and brought out a hold all bag with the handle of a tennis racket sticking out of one end. She crossed to the northern side of Cardiff Road and walked the short distance to Tredegar Park. It was a few minutes before 8:00 a.m., there were a few pedestrians on the main road and one female jogger coming out of the park. Without hesitation, Claire took out the key to the lodge, opened the door and walked in as though she owned the house. She climbed the stairs and walked to the south facing room that over looked the main road and the business park. She set her bag down and began to prepare for the task ahead.
Claire pulled out a pair of surgical gloves from her coat pocket and put them on. She opened the bag, set the tennis racket aside and brought out a cushion and a flask of coffee. She pulled out the rifle she bought from the scary woman in Devon, mounted the telescopic sight over the barrel and loaded the rifle with ammunition.
Around the same time, Riesling and Walter woke up for the start of another week and they both agreed that this coming week was unlikely to bring any unusual events; they just need to sit tight and wait for events to take their course. Riesling made Walter a bacon butty lunch pack and put with it a bar of Lokoum and a note telling Walter she loved him. Walter left the house at 8:30 for his 10-minute walk to the Patent Office.
By the time Walter left his house, the roundabout in front of the lodge was becoming congested with cars, trucks and buses. At the same time, a stream of pedestrians was flowing in both directions towards the business park. The entire area was buzzing with noise and activity.
Claire went over to the window overlooking the Patent Office main entrance and opened it enough for the barrel of the gun to poke through. She kneeled on the cushion and tried out the telescopic sight on passing pedestrians and cars. Had she felt like it, she could have killed any number of office workers, bus drivers, four dogs, three joggers and two policemen. Claire had no grudge against any of them so, she left them well alone.
At 8:36, Claire saw a figure wearing a brown duffle coat and sporting the distinctive weird hair style; her target was finally approaching. She cleared her throat and prepared herself with the gun, which she had trained on the approach road to the Patent Office. She turned the gun a few centimetres to the left and picked Walter through the lens. Walter was walking behind two women and ahead of another man. Claire carefully followed him the few steps towards the entrance and made sure he stayed lined up on the cross hairs of the telescopic sight. Finally, Walter was walking directly in front of the lodge and although he was more than 20 meters away, Claire could see him as though he was walking in the room she was in; everything was set for action.
Claire pulled the trigger with her right index finger and kept it pressed for just over a second. The precision-engineered rifle released three bullets in quick succession. As the bullets travelled on their short but lethal journey, the crack, crack, crack noise they made was drowned by the buzz of the traffic.
At 8:37, a milk tanker from Apple Tree Farm turned left from Lighthouse Road to Cardiff Road on its way to pick up the M4 half a mile away, the consignment was destined for a cheddar cheese-making factory in Devon. The three bullets struck the tanker in three different places and emerged from the other side, causing hundreds of litres of full fat milk to squirt out of six holes and cover the roundabout, cars, buses and pedestrians with the best quality milk Wales can offer.
Walter took a direct hit; of five litres of milk. Like other pedestrians, Walter froze to the spot and could not work out what had just happened to him. Car and bus drivers tried to freeze but couldn’t as their vehicles skidded over the full fat milk on the road. The milk tanker didn’t freeze either; the driver was an experienced HGV driver who was so experienced, he never looked in his rear view mirrors and kept himself entertained by talking on his mobile phone filing traffic reports to the traffic team at BBC Radio Wales and taking part in radio quiz games. This morning, he was answering the challenging political question “who is the current British Prime Minister, is it a) James Brown; b) Gordon Brown; or c) Golden Retriever? The winner would win a pair of tickets for an “Evening of Comedy with Rob Brydon” at the New Theatre in Cardiff.
Claire cursed her bad luck and was relieved to see that Walter was still helpfully standing on the same spot to give her another crack at killing him. She was a little surprised to see him taking the trouble to make himself more visible by changing into a white duffle coat instead of the brown one he had on a few seconds earlier.
Claire took aim again and squeezed the trigger for her second go at killing Walter. As luck would have it, a Green Valley Poultry Farm lorry full of battery reared chicken on its way to a Halal meat processing plant near Birmingham was driving in the same direction as the milk tanker. The chicken lorry witnessed the milk tanker turn into a bizarre mobile milk fountain and slammed on the brakes. The chicken lorry skidded, smashed into two cars travelling from Newport to Cardiff, turned over and came to a stand still, but upside down, in the middle of the roundabout. By now, all traffic came to a stand still, people stood around surveying the scene, the milk tanker carried on and picked up the M4 within 2 minutes of the first shots being fired. 1200 chicken who until today had spent their short miserable lives cooped up in an extremely tight space had swapped a certain death for freedom to roam anywhere they liked in the Welsh countryside. They couldn’t believe their luck and made the most of their opportunity. 325 chicken ran towards the park, 150 ran towards the business park, 85 ran towards Newport, 79 ran towards Cardiff and the M4, 47 ran back in the direction of Green Valley Farm, 55 instinctively tried to fly but found that many generations of breeding for fatness had left them with wings which were useless for flying but delicious when deep fried in batter; 8 chicken were unlucky to be killed by Claire’s second volley of bullets and died instantly. The rest of the chickens came out of the wreckage, clucked around the roundabout randomly and mingled with the stunned crowd waiting for someone to come along and give them further instructions. In short, Claire’s attempt at killing Walter yet again, failed miserably. Walter, who obligingly stayed rooted to the spot, was now covered in chicken feathers as well as the milk shower treatment he had a short while ago. One of the 55 chickens who attempted and failed to fly crash landed on Walter’s shoulder and stayed there for a better view of the mayhem.
By now, due to the smoke, dust and chicken feathers, Claire could hardly see anything from the first floor window of the lodge. She left everything she brought in with her, including the rifle and made a quick exit before the entire area was cordoned off by the police as a crime scene. Claire emerged into the nightmare she had just created and walked serenely towards Tesco’s car park, ignoring the noise created by people, chicken and emergency vehicles. She drove off in the opposite direction towards Newport City Centre and out at the other end. She met three police cars coming in the opposite direction.
Finally, Walter’s brain clicked into action again. He looked around him and at himself and decided to return home for an urgently needed shower and change of clothes. The chicken on his shoulder kept him company by discussing the shocking incident they had just experienced. Walter listened politely but said nothing back to the sociable chicken.
To read the next chapter, please click here: Chapter 24
