20. SHOPPING

Chris had been pretty terrified when that shot had rung out in the forest and had run like the proverbial bat to get out of there and he hadn’t seen the root under the snow that led to his crashing downfall. As he lay there stunned in the snow watching his partners in crime disappear into the distance and leaving him to his fate, he had a sudden realisation that this life truly wasn’t for him. He was quite happy to leave petty crime to the Stus of this world, and if by some remote chance he managed to get out of this pickle, he vowed that he would never be tempted to do such things again.

He’d hadn’t really noticed Stan rescuing him. He’s still been too dazed from his fall, but he knew full well that Stan wasn’t best pleased from the rough way he’d been half dragged back to the little house he now found himself in. He’d sat him down, still shivering from his time lying in the snow, in a chair next to the fireplace. Then he’d thrown a blanket at him and started to pour them both a coffee from his battered old thermos, which seemed friendly enough, so Chris didn’t think he’d ventured into “Deliverance” territory, but he was still waving that bloody great shotgun around, so Chris decided to stay put whilst Stan looked him over and seemed to be trying to decide quite what to do about him.

Before he knew it, Chris found himself babbling away about the job and Carol and his Christmas present problem and meeting Stu and agreeing to tag along and how he’d never done anything like this before in his life… It all just poured out of him and Stan just sat there, sipping at his coffee and listening like the wisest old man in the world.

When Chris had finished his story, Stan sat back in his chair and lit himself another pipe and contemplated the young man sitting across from him, then he very calmly and slowly read him the riot act, telling him that he was perfectly within his rights to call the Police and have him hauled before a Magistrate for trespass at the very least. This caused another meltdown for Chris who found himself babbling again, which seemed to produce little more than a chuckle from the old Gamekeeper.

Chris paused, confused at this reaction and Stan explained a few things to him which helped to calm him down a little. It seemed that Stan was prepared to let him go if he promised never to try anything like this again. He wasn’t prepared to be made a fool of, but he was willing to give him a second chance. He started telling him about an opportunity he’d been given way back in the day which had led him back to the ways of the straight and narrow, and Chris found that he actually quite liked the old chap, who seemed to be interested in telling him all the fascinating stuff that he knew about these woods, and how vital every part of the ecosystem was to every other part. The old boy was quite enthralling about it all really, making his world sound like a wonderful, almost magical place, and he found himself getting more and more questions about how things worked, and started thinking to himself that he’d really like to learn more about these things. As time went by he relaxed so much that he’d almost forgotten what it was that had brought him to this place that night.

Suddenly, the magic was broken by a firm knocking on Stan’s front door.

Stan was most surprised that someone might have come calling, especially at this time of the night. Sam leapt up from his basket with as much enthusiasm as a dog of his age could muster and barked furiously at the door. Stan pulled back the curtain he’d hung to keep the warmth in and looked through the glass panel.

“Policemen,” he said. He glanced over at where Chris sat pathetically wrapped in a blanket, looking like he was about to have a panic attack. He’d realised that his entire future could be decided in the next few minutes. If Stan was going to shop him, it would be now, and this really wasn’t the Christmas shopping he’d had in mind when he’d first agreed to accompany Stu into the woods tonight. Then, of course, there would be the bitter consequences if he had to shop Stu which also didn’t bear thinking about. “You’d better let me do the talking…” he heard Stan say. Chris gave him a rather pathetic look and Stan added calmly “Don’t worry, I’m not going to tell them anything…”

He opened the door and greeted the young Constables with all of his considerable charm, listened to their story, introduced himself and invited them in out of the cold, for which they were most grateful. Once inside they had a good look around the cluttered little room, and could hardly fail to spot the young man shivering in a blanket by the fireplace, despite Sam’s yapping barks doing their best to distract them.

“…and you must be our missing…” one of the Policeman started to say, when Carol hurled herself past both of them and gave Chris the biggest hug of his life.