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at night. Amazing about these macho authors. They’re generally big girl’s blouses when you meet them. Same with the whips and chains blokes. They all look like chartered accountants in person.”
    A siren wailing down the street. Peter peeked through the filthy curtains—wildly flowered in a print of orange and hot pink that probably dated from the days of the Beatles.
    “Here’s the ambulance. It’s all right then. They’ll get poor old Barnacle sorted.” He picked up a large purple umbrella and offered me his arm. “Come, m’lady. The brolly’s big enough for both of us. Let’s get you fed.”
    He led me into the rain and put up the umbrella. I took his offered elbow, although the thought of where it had been made this less appealing than it might have been. But I was happy for the stability on the slippery cobblestones.
    Peter blithely led me past the paramedics attending to Barnacle Bill, who still lay lifeless on the sidewalk.
    “You’ll feel better when you’ve had a pint, lass. And I need to introduce you properly to the lads. I owe them a couple of rounds. Rather clever, I thought, calling them all on their mobiles to coordinate the maneuvers. I haven’t forgotten everything I learned while fighting for Queen and country in the Balkans.”
    I digested this information.
    “So that was you who called Liam in the car?”
    He grinned. “Yes. I called from my perch up there. Awfully sorry I couldn’t welcome you myself. But as you saw, the old Barnacle had other plans for me.”
    “So you’re previously acquainted with this…Barnacle person?”
    “He used to captain my yacht in the Caribbean.”
    Yachts. The Caribbean. Galaxies away from this soggy, nonsensical place. I felt as if I were watching a foreign film without subtitles. All I wanted was a bed. And a shower.
    But instead I was walking down a narrow, treacherous street in the direction of beer—warm beer, no doubt; Plant had warned me of that—with a man I did not know, and at the moment, had very little reason to trust.

Chapter 11—The Merry Men
     
    As we rounded the corner, we came to a pub called the Merry Miller—a storybook half-timbered building with thick, bottle-glass window panes and a tiny arched wooden door that looked as if it had been made for Hobbits. So did the low ceilings. But the place glowed with inviting light from a big fireplace near the bar.
    “A seventeenth century coaching inn,” Peter said. “There are still some guest rooms upstairs. Gordon Trask isn’t terribly impressed with them, but then Mr. Trask isn’t impressed with much.”
    Before I could ask him to elaborate, Liam shouted from a big booth in the corner. “You owe us a pint, Peter.”
    “Brenda, pints all round for me brave lads!” Peter shouted at a large red-haired woman as he ushered me through the crowd. He seated me next to the wheelchair man.
    “So what was all that about, Peter?” said Mr. Eyebrows. “That geezer said you owed him money. Do you?”
    Peter’s eyes twinkled.
    “It’s not impossible. I left Tobago Bay with some haste last year. I don’t know how he found me here.” He took out his pipe and filled it from a leather tobacco pouch. “He’s mostly harmless, except when he’s on the piss.”
    “I don’t know why Meggy let him in. He were right bladdered,” said the man in the paint-spattered hoodie. He had a number of piercings in both ears and one in his nose.
    “It’s hardly fair to Meggy,” said the man in the wheelchair. He gave a professorial harrumph. “She’s a machine operator, not a bloody guard dog.” He extended his hand to me. “I’m Pradeep Balasubramarium, Miss Randall. Your editor.”
    “We just call him Professor,” Peter said. “Got a Ph.D. from Cambridge, he does. No idea why he’s slumming with this lot.”
    The Professor gave my hand a shake.
    “Sorry I didn’t introduce myself over there. I didn’t want to let on that you were one of our authors, or that lunatic might have