What a complete and absolute mess.
‘FOR GOD’S SAKE! I WANT TO SEE A LAWYER!’
Leovinus screamed at the top of his voice, and he rattled the bars of his cell in the time-honoured manner.
Sergeant Stroud looked at Constable Hackett and they both shook their heads. He might be a harmless, confused old man, but, as far as they were concerned, it looked better in the station log if he were an illegal immigrant. They’d score a few points with the Home Office if they could get him sent back to somewhere or other… Maybe Chad or Zimbabwe…
28
Lucy thrilled to the expert way The Journalist brought the landing craft down in what had been the garden of the old rectory. In the darkness, the ruined house looked even more desolate than it had on that fateful night: souvenir hunters had stripped it of everything movable including loose bricks.
The plan was to try and pick up Leovinus’s trail, starting from the crash site. There was also the possibility that he might still be hanging around hoping that the Starship would return.
It was not a bad plan, as such, but as Dan jumped out of the landing craft a loud-hailer crackled across the old rectory lawns and a blinding searchlight hit him full in the face: ‘Put your hands above your head! Do not make any sudden movements! You are surrounded by armed police!’ They had not reckoned on the Oxfordshire Constabulary, who – flushed with their recent success in capturing an illegal immigrant – had set up a permanent watch around the landing site.
Dan instinctively did all the things the loud-hailer had told him not to. He didn’t put his hands above his head. He leapt – very suddenly – back into the landing craft and screamed: ‘Hit it!’
The Journalist fired the engine and the small craft leapt into the air, as a hail of gunfire exploded across the lawn. In a few seconds, the spacecraft had disappeared into the night, and the Oxfordshire Police were left staring at the empty sward.
‘Calm down, everyone!’ Nettie had taken over, although Lucy was contributing the most volubly to the discussion:
‘Aaaarrrgh! Agggh!’ She was choosing her words carefully.
The Journalist was concentrating on controlling the craft. Dan was shaking.
‘OK,’ continued Nettie. ‘We’ve got twelve hours to find Leovinus. Our two chances are: one, picking up his trail around here and two, Nigel.’
‘Nigel?’ Dan’s hackles were up – could this wonderful woman be still thinking about that schmuck?
‘He’s the one person we know was here at the site when Leovinus walked off the ship. He may have seen him – may even know where he is now!’
‘Nettie! You’re a genius!’ said Dan.
‘Aaaah! Ooooh!’ Lucy added.
‘I suggest you and Lucy investigate around here, while The, here, drives me to London to find Nigel.’ Nettie had it all worked out. Within a few minutes, the landing craft had deposited Dan and Lucy in a quiet back lane near the hotel where they had been staying, and in another minute, Nettie and The Journalist were heading for the M40.
It began to get light as they approached the motorway. ‘We don’t want the police picking us up,’ Nettie was thinking aloud. ‘We’d better pretend we’re an ordinary car – a Japanese copy of something Italian maybe. Can you drive this thing just a few inches above the ground?’
‘Absolutely!’ said The Journalist, and he swung the craft down onto the empty B-road. It took him a few moments to pick up the knack of keeping it steady at such a low altitude, but he was getting it.
‘And you’d better cut the speed down just a tad, The,’ said Nettie, ‘180 m.p.h. is a little fast for these bends.’
By the time they swung out into the fast lane of the M40, The Journalist had managed to get the craft down to a mere 80 m.p.h. and was giving a pretty good impression of a perfectly ordinary (if flamboyantly designed) motorcar. Nettie just hoped nobody would notice their lack of wheels.
Being the rush hour, most drivers weren’t looking where they were going, as they crawled their way towards Central London. The finest jam, however, was reserved for the picturesque stretch after the Uxbridge turnoff. There were roadworks, and the rush hour simply ground to a deadening, inevitable halt.