Charlie and Me. The Saga Continues

Charlie and Me. Chapter 9

Seeing as it's maid's day off tomorrow, I won't be online, and I know you'll all be gagging to know how the property development goes. So out of the goodness of my heart, I'll put you out of your misery. It's a bit of an epic too, so it should keep you all happy for a couple of days.

This is dedicated to all the dodgy builders I've ever met.

Charlie and Me. Chapter 9

'Listen up, Marines. We need to make an early start tomorrow, crack of dawn stuff,' I said on the Thursday night as we sat around the table in Mission Control. As usual we were stuffed full of food. Unusually we were not even remotely pissed; we had a long day ahead of us.

Charlie whined a bit; she's not at her best in the mornings.

'We've got the truck loaded, fully fuelled up, we have an extra twenty gallons of diesel in jerrycans in the back. I have thoughtfully provided a fuelling funnel as well. We have two silver Ford Mondeo hire cars, and you don't find more anonymous hire cars than those. They're also fully fuelled, and untraceable since we hired them with our, shall we say, slightly suspect licences, and paid in cash.

'Arry'n'Barry, you sure the watertank is big enough? Have you got everything else you need? I don't want to have to nip down to B&Q halfway through this.'

'Sorted, mate. Pieceapiss. Big Steve come in quite andy there when we wos loadin up. Me'n'Barry jus sorta gorraht the way, lerrim get on wiv fings. Ee dint even need an and wiv the cement mixer.'

'I suppose the practice with that washing machine might have helped.'

'Yeah, mebbe. Mindja, the truck is nearly on the bumpstops. Nuffin illegal, not overloaded or nuffin. I dunt fink so, anyways. Until Big Steve and me'n'Barry get in. Thajuss might tip us over the edge.'

'Where's Steve now?'

'Restin. Ee's a bit knackered. Where's Sylvester?'

'I'll tell you where Sylvester is. He's at his parents' house; Charlie dropped him at Stansted Airport this morning. Direct rail link to Birmingham New Steet.'

'Nice.'

'He's proably stuffing his face with his mum's bread and butter pudding as we speak,' said Charlie.

'Ee can eat, carnt ee?' said Arry.

'Fuck me, Arry. Pot? Kettle? Black? Have I missed anything out, or are you getting my fucking drift here?' said Charlie, nodding at the plate on which lay the meagre remains of Arry's gustatory efforts. Arry grinned.

'Here's what's going to happen. Oh, before I forget, here's some change for the Dartford crossing.' I doled out coins. 'That's for on the way back. On the way there we're going round the top of the M25 so there's no risk of getting separated at the Dartford tollgates. I'll leave first, then you Arry'n'Barry with Big Steve follow me. Charlie, bring up the rear, because I have enough self-control to keep the convoy at flank speed instead of full ahead all engines, and you don't. Stop whining.'

'Just after the Hogsback, you lot peel off into that handy layby. Arry'n'Barry, I'll drive in there to show you where it is. Get in there, pull up. You'll have time for a cuppa at the burger van there, but you may have to restrain any truckers if they get sight of my beloved.' Charlie started to speak, but I held up a finger. 'Yes I know you can handle yourself but they may still have the death penalty in Latvia.

'I go on ahead. Keep the radios plugged into the chargers I have thoughtfully supplied; another thing we don't want to happen is for us to lose contact with each other. No phones! I'm not running the risk of having phones tracked. If Len is as connected as he claims, though I doubt that, it's easy for things to get followed. Switch your phones off. Take out the batteries and SIM cards. Do it now. We leave them here. Here are individually labelled padded envelopes. Put the phones and bits in there, seal them now, or we'll have a swine of a job sorting things afterwards.