Strangers by Paul Finch Page B

pinching lead off a church roof. And he had no idea how much another conviction, even a minor one, might damage his chances of staying out of jail.
    But now, slowly, he began to notice things that reassured him a little.
    In the dimness, he couldn’t distinguish much about the car parked behind his van – he could only see the offside of it, and he certainly couldn’t identify its make or colour. But there were no Battenberg flashes down its flanks. Nor was there any kind of beacon or visi-flasher on top of it. That didn’t necessarily mean it wasn’t a police car, but its engine had been switched off and there were no headlights showing. Surely, if they were coppers, they’d still be sitting inside, waiting for the miscreants to come back?

    Barney trod forward warily. Even drawing closer, it wasn’t possible in this gloom to determine whether or not someone was inside it. But then a voice addressed him.
    ‘Excuse me … can you help?’
    He swung right, to find a woman sliding into view around the front nearside of the van.
    Barney was shaken to see anyone at all, but this lady was the last person he’d have expected. Even in the dimness, she was a stunner: quite tall, an impression enhanced by her high-heeled boots and long, shapely legs, which were clad in spray-on black leggings. Her hands were tucked into the pockets of a shiny, silvery anorak, which was partly unzipped, exposing the best amount of cleavage he’d seen since last accessing the Butts & Boobs section of SexHub . She had a pretty face as well, and a nice smile. What looked like an awful lot of blonde hair was tucked beneath a smart black beret.
    ‘Erm … miss?’ he stammered.
    ‘I said can you help me?’
    Barney remained tongue-tied; he was smitten. But it now struck him that whoever this lady was, she was still a potential witness to his crime. Even if she failed to recognise him again, she might recognise the registration mark on the van. Trust him to let bleeding Kev talk him into using his uncle’s vehicle.
    ‘I’ve broken down, you see,’ the woman said, apparently oblivious to all this. ‘I don’t know what it was but I just kept losing power and stalling. I’d only just managed to get off the road when I saw your vehicle. I could really use someone to look at the engine.’
    ‘Look at the engine …? I’m, whoa … I’m not a mechanic.’
    ‘Please help,’ she said, her smile faltering, her voice softening with distress. ‘I don’t want to get stuck all the way out here.’
    ‘Can’t you just call a garage?’ he said, and immediately cursed himself. That would be all they needed, a vehicle-recovery team showing up.

    But now the woman spoke again, taking a couple of steps towards him, unzipping the front of her anorak. To his disbelief, he saw that she wasn’t wearing anything underneath.
    ‘There must be something I can do,’ she said, ‘to make you change your mind.’
    ‘Miss, I …’ Barney turned hoarse, his mouth dry of spittle. ‘You can’t be …’
    She beckoned him with a long, crimson-tipped finger, before slowly backtracking.
    Barney wondered if he was actually unconscious and dreaming. Even though a voice inside kept telling him that this didn’t happen in real life, he followed her anyway – back around the front nearside corner of the van and down along the flank of it towards the deep shadows where her own vehicle was parked.
    As Kev made his way back to the van, he quietly fumed.
    A small man, of thin, wiry stature, the last item he’d taken – the larger of the two mattresses – had almost overwhelmed him with its size and weight. He’d dropped it several times en-route; it had subsequently smeared mud all over the front of his white shell-suit top.
    It was no one’s fault obviously, but Barney was still going to cop it verbally.
    A bloke his size ought to have gone straight to the heavier items, rather than leaving them for his mate. And where the fuck was he anyway? They ought to have