Jade Monkey

I barely made out the two people in dark clothes. Their collars were turned up and their hats pulled down. For all that they might as well have had a bright neon sign saying ‘bad news’ flashing over their heads, it would have been more subtle. Central still seemed a good option, it’s an old cemetery that’s still partially forested, and there were plenty of places to hide. Of course the problem was that it was quiet and came with ready-made graves.

We stumbled on as fast as we could for fifty yards before I glanced back again. Beside me the idea that we needed to hurry seemed to have filtered through however many bottles alcohol to the reporter. The black wrought iron gates of the cemetery seemed to inch closer, but so did our pursuers. Their pace was unhurried but purposeful and they didn’t need to be moving fast to be moving faster than us. Passing through the cemetery gates didn’t make me feel safer. We’d have a few moments grace, as we’d be screened for a time by the hedge that ran by the road at cemetery entrance but that was precious little time in which to hide.

The air was still and quiet, far away I could make out the old church on a small rise, with its graveyard hemmed in by a dry stonewall. Much too far away to reach, I picked out a likely copse of trees and we lurched off the dark asphalt that led into the heart of the cemetery and along a line of graves. It was taking too long. We struggled for another minute more, and as we passed an open grave I made a split second decision. I lifted the journalist’s arm from my shoulders and kicked his legs out from under him; he half toppled half slumped into the grave and I hissed ‘Stay down’ before running like hell.

A breathless look over my shoulder showed that my moment of grace was over as the two pursuers came around the corner of the hedge. There were shouts as they realised that they could only see my back, and that was rapidly disappearing. I couldn’t make out what they were shouting, I was too busy trying to hold my hat on with one hand and get my gun out of my pocket with the other. As the gun came free I decided to collect on my insurance policy. I pivoted on my left foot and swung the gun ‘round in a long arc before firing two shots directly over their heads, sending them diving for cover and I watched with some satisfaction as their hats tumbled away in the breeze. Hopefully he’d be close enough to hear.

The silence that followed my shots stretched for long seconds, and in my mind my two shadowy opponents, sat in hiding behind any number of tombstones, guns in hand, waiting for their chance. The roar of a diesel engine, and the screech of tortured tires broke the silence as a police van swerved violently from behind the hedges and onto the cemetery grass leaving two deep furrows as it came. The two broke cover then from behind their gravestones and made for the gate. Without their hats I got a good look at their faces, it didn’t need to be a good look for me to recognise them.

The police van drew slowly to a halt in front of me and the driver reached over and opened the passenger door for me.

‘Took your time Stiles.’ I complained.

The driver grinned. ‘That’s Sergeant Stiles to you.’

Apart from the Sergeants stripes on his sleeve, Stiles hadn’t changed. He was still over six foot tall with dark blond hair and broad shoulders. The blue grey eyes behind his glasses barely hid his amusement at having to bail me out of a shoot out in a cemetery.

‘They finally got that desperate back at the station?’

‘Yep. They even let me have the van back.’

‘So I see. How’d they get it off the bottom of the docks?’

‘Crane.’ Stiles pushed his wire frame glasses higher up his nose with the palm of one hand. ‘Who were your friends?’

I sighed. ‘Its complicated.’

‘It always is with you. Drink?’

‘Help me get the Reporter out of this grave and I’ll be right with you.’

I think one of the things I like best about Stiles is that he doesn’t ask questions like ‘What?’ or ‘A grave?’ when I say things like that.

I was worried for a moment that the fall might have injured the Reporter. That was until he snored loudly and tried to turn over and make himself comfortable on the loam. It took us a few minutes to haul him out and get him in the van. He didn’t wake up though, he just kept on snoring. As we drove I filled Stiles’ in on the situation as best I could. He took it better than I’d expected.