VI

i looked at Danny aghast, and not for the first time in the thirty three years that I have known, and been infuriated by the bloody man, I realised quite how shallow he has always been. the motivating factors in his life have always been sex, money and power over people weaker than himself. I don't think that I have ever disliked him quite s much as I did then. I gulped at some more coffee, lit another cigarette and asked him to continue.

of course he started to talk about the two nubile young hitchhikers again, but I managed to head him off that subject with some difficulty, and tried to find out some more about these peculiar people who wee living as a family out in the deep woods. "Of course I didn't believe that these three people were Gods, they had to be just ordinary people who were better at social manipulation than the people who followed them. Its amazing what a few conjuring tricks and some masks will do to impress a bunch of stoned homeless hippies" he blustered, and for a moment I actually believed him.

"At least that is what I thought at first" he admitted, looking surprisingly shamefaced. "I found out a bit more later and was forced to change my mind, but at that stage I just wanted to get closer to the girls, if y'know what I mean", and once again he winked at me in a horrid manner and became the sleazy cocksman that I have learned to despise for all those years.

Realising that Danny's thoughts were once again verging towards the carnal, and wanting to find out what the hell this was all about, whilst still being only too aware that I had a long and difficult day ahead of me, and Danny's tomfoolery was just going to compound the problems i had to face. So I did my best to bring him back on track without actually grabbing him by the scruff of the neck and banging his head repeatedly against the wall. I am nit a violent man, but I am afraid that Danny Miles brings out the worst in me.

Back at The Westcountry Inn, Danny had apparently told the two girls, whose names - he informed me - were Sable and Araminta, that he wanted to meet the other members of what they described as 'The Children of The Three' and asked whether this could be arranged. Araminta, slightly nervously made a phone call on her mobile, and spoke to someone called 'Skullfuck' who she later described as the Sergeant at Arms. i pricked up my ears at this; back in my mis-spent youth, soon after I Had met Danny for the first time, I knew a biker in the South Devon village of Kenton with just this unlovely soubriquet. Surely there couldn't be that many people called 'Skullfuck' living in the Westcountry. Realising that if this was indeed someone that I used to know then I had an ace up my sleeve that Danny might not know about. Many years of dealing with the bloody man has taught me that when dealing with Danny Miles one needs as many cards in one's deck as possible, so I filed the information away for future reference, took another drag on Messrs Benson And Hedges's finest, and asked Danny to continue.

About half an hour later, Araminta's phone rang, and she muttered a conversation whilst making the odd furtive sideways glances at Danny, and giggling nervously. then, when the call was over, she lent over to Sable and whispered in her er. The two girls squealed delightedly, and dragged Danny to his feet. They danced around him, showering him with kisses as they did so, and then delightedly pulled him out into the car park to his car.

Danny asked me whether I knew the area at all. Of course I did. back in 1978 my father taught me to drive along these very lanes, nd long the min rod which led from Clovelly down to Bude. In more recent years I had explored quite a few of these back lanes at night with Corinna and one of our students, who was doing a project about the nocturnal fauna of this part of Devon, but although we were dutifully logging the badgers and foxes that we saw, we were really hoping that we would have an encounter with one if the big cats that are more and more commonly reported in the region.

I explained this to Danny, and he told me how the two girls, by now twitching with almost palpable excitement had instructed him to drive back in the direction of Kilkhampton for a few miles, until they came cross. Blind turning on the left. They drove down this little lane, and were now surrounded by the tall grey green pine trees of the Forestry Commission. Showing admirable restraint and far more common sense than I was used to from him, Danny was only driving at about twenty five miles per hour down what my Father used to describe as a 'Devon Dual Carraigeway', an unkempt road with grass growing down the centre leaving a separate 'carriageway' for each wheel. this was a good thing, because suddenly two dark figures stepped out of the undergrowth about twenty feet in front of the car, the two girls screamed "Stop!!!" In unison, and Danny slammed his foot on the brake, and they screeched to a halt, and Sable, who was in the back seat behind him, giggled manically, produced a hunting knife from up her sleeve, and held it to his throat.

The two figures who had stepped out of the bushes in front of them approached the car, and Danny saw to his horror that they were wearing grubby black dungarees, their faces were covered by realistic rubber pig masks, and they were carrying what looked suspiciously like semi automatic rifles which seemed far too big for them. It was only then that Danny realised that by their stature they could not have been more than ten or eleven years old.

Danny was frogmarched out of the car, a black bin bag was put over his head, one of the pig children took the keys from the ignition, opened the boot of the car and his four captors unceremoniously bundled Danny into it, slamming it shut a few centimetres above his head.

"Bloody Hell" I said, whilst - for the first time in about thirty years - actually feeling mildly sorry for Danny Miles.