CHAPTER 19.
The next night, John worked alone behind the bar. He had given Molly and Olly the night off, and was trying to make up for the hours which he had missed. Fortified with several glasses of port, he endeavoured to hide his misery from the world, to pretend that it was just another night. Which, in truth, it was.
Tony and a few of his friends stood round the bar, still telling stories of their fight with The Count to anyone who would listen. The usual Goth couple sat in their usual corner.
At twelve o’clock, Lloyd and Anne walked in hand in hand. Fresh red bite marks showed on her lily white neck. Lloyd was even more immaculately dressed and groomed than usual.
“Evening Harvey
“Evening, Lloyd. How goes it?”
“Quiet well, old chap, quite well. I shall have a tomato juice and a glass of your finest white wine, if you don’t mind.”
“Certainly. How are you doing Anne?”
“Good, thank you, and yourself?” she said shyly.
“Not bad. That will be five pounds ten please.”
“Cheers.”
They took a table in the middle of the room, and sat hand in hand.
The Goth couple debated between themselves for a moment, then the young man approached Lloyd’s table.
“Excuse me, sir,” the young man said nervously.
“Evening,” Lloyd replied.
“There was someone looking for you in here a few hours ago, just before John Harvey started work. Thought you should know,” He ran painted finger nails through his long, dyed black hair. “Don’t think he was from around here. He didn’t seem to know you, just your name, but he was asking everyone about you.”
“What did you tell him?”
“Nothing.”
“Good show. Thank you for informing me. Can’t think who that might be. Did he give his name? What did the fellow look like?”
“He looked a bit like you actually… Long hair, wore a suit. Had a cross round his neck. Didn’t give his name.”
“I shall look out for him.”
“If you find the bastard, give him a punch for me. He was all over my girlfriend.”
“Certainly. Who knows, I may even kill him.”
The man nodded respectfully and headed back to his table.
“Does that sound like anyone you know?” Lloyd asked Anne.
“No, I don’t think so. I do hope it has nothing to do with The Count.”
“We shall see.”
“Will you really kill him?”
“Maybe, or maybe I shall do something dashed cunning…”
Soon afterwards Molly and Dave came in. They went to the bar, talked to John for a while, ordered a drink, then headed towards Lloyd’s table. Dave was clearly uncomfortable to be near Lloyd, but Molly wore her usual look of cheerful determination.
“Alright Lloyd,” Molly said.
Dave tried to smile, but failed.
“Good evening,” Lloyd greeted her casually, and ignored Dave. “Would you care you join us?”
“Thank you. This must be Anne, nice to meet you. I’m Molly.”
“Good to meet you,” Anne replied.
She shuck hands with Molly and Dave and then they were seated.
Molly and Dave tried to make small talk. Anne was pleased to meet new people, but after years of a confined existence she found it difficult to talk much. Dave was clearly terrified of Lloyd, but tried to put on a brave face. Lloyd had little to contribute to the conversation, because he was busy plotting.
When the Goth couple went outside for a cigarette he took a cigar from his jacket and discreetly followed them.
“Please tell me you’re not going out with him,” Molly said to Anne as soon as Lloyd left.
“Yes, we are together. Why not?”
“Because he is a murderous, psychotic bastard.”
“He is charming, dashing, handsome and brave. He rescued me, in a way…”
“He is a murderous, psychotic bastard. He was a murderous, psychotic bastard when Napoleon was a boy, from what I have heard he was a murderous psychotic bastard when suits of armour were in fashion, and he is a murderous psychotic bastard now.”
“He is far better than my last boyfriend.”
Molly had to admit that she had never felt the need to beat Lloyd to death with a hockey stick, so this was probably true.
“Just be careful,” Molly said instead.
Dave wanted to say something reassuring, but he thought that Lloyd was the sort of man who might kill a man for talking to his girlfriend.
“I’ll be fine. Are you two a couple?” Anne asked, wanting to change the topic of conversation.
Molly and Dave both looked very awkward.
“I’m sorry,” said Anne, “none of my business.”
“My girlfriend is down south at present,” Molly stated.
“We are friends,” Dave ventured, putting his arm around Molly, then taking it away hastily.
“I see,” Anne said.
“Would you like a drink?” Molly asked. “It’s Dave’s round.”
“Dear Alice,
Glad to hear that you are well. Have you been up to much recently?
Am not doing terribly well really. Cannot say much about it, but I have recently lost someone whom I was very fond of. Shall be attending her funeral in a week or so. Hope that I shall see her again one day.
Take care,
John. X”
John turned off his computer, and poured himself a glass of port. He turned on the radio, and read a little Blake. Then he spent a while staring at an unfinished poem which he had written a few months ago. There was a note which read;
“The Tragedy of Moths,
Who do so love light,
But live in Darkness,”
Beneath that he had scrawled the first stanza;
“Moth, why do you fly to the candle light?
Or dance against the window bright,
When you wander through the night?
Why batter your pretty wings in vain?
Or end your short life in pain?”
He thought about it for a few minutes, then begun a second stanza;
“If you love the light enough to die,
Why then do you not fly…”
He gave up after that, read Blake for a little longer, then went to bed.
For one thing, it put her break up with Paul into perspective. John had lost a girlfriend, she was sure of that. No one who she knew had died, perhaps she had been over reacting.
It had never occurred to her that ‘John The Vampyre’ might have a girlfriend, and the idea of him grieving for her was strangely touching. It gave him a human side which she had not really considered. She found it odd to be told of something so personal by someone who she had never meet, someone who had become a very odd and distant part of her life, but still a part of it.
She was a little taken aback by his understated tone, the objectivity and simplicity with which he wrote. On the one hand, she found it pleasingly manly, on the other she found it uncomfortably cold. And he hoped to see her again? Could he really believe that two people, or two vampires, could meet again decades or centuries after death and continue their relationship?
She did not know how to reply.
At four o’clock in the afternoon, the Goth couple, whose names were Evil Sophie and Clive, sat in the Black Boar. Clive worn his best leather jacket, and Evil Sophie had spent hours on her make up, because they we doing real hardcore gangster shit, for a real vampire.
Lloyd had given them a job, and they would be richly rewarded. Or at least Lloyd had told them that he would owe them a favour. Clive hoped that Lloyd would invite them to some sort of Vampire party, and Evil Sophie hoped that he would kill her boss.
Clive had been in the pub since opening at two, whilst Evil Sophie had looked around all the other pubs and cafes. Then she had joined him (with nothing to report) and after she had had a drink it would be his turn to look around the town whilst she waited.
Just as they were finishing their drinks, and Clive was about to leave, Hunter walked in.
Clive nodded at him to get his attention, and then this did not work, Evil Sophie followed Hunter into the bar.
“Good afternoon,” she said.
Hunter turned around, looked her up and down, and was clearly pleased to see her.
“Good afternoon,” he replied, taking her hand and kissing it. “To what do I own this unexpected pleasure?”
“We have a message for you. We know someone who has information for you about Lloyd, he will meet you here at ten tonight.”
“Excellent, thank you. I must be off now, God bless you.”
With that he strode out of the bar.
“Creepy Christian bastard,” Evil Sophie muttered, but she smiled because her work was done, and she believed that soon the killing would begin.
“Did you tell him?” Clive asked as soon as she came out.
“Of course.”
“And…?”
“And he believed me, and he’s a creep, but he might be hot if he wasn’t a Christian…”
Clive nearly objected to that, but there was no time.
“Great, I’ll call Lloyd,” he got his phone and rang the number he had been given.
There was no answer.
“He’s sleeping now isn’t he, its daylight,” Evil Sophie said.
“Oh, yeah, must be. I’ll call him later.”
“I hope he kills my boss for me.”
“I heard he only kills French people.”
They gave this some thought.
“That can’t be true,” she said, “if he had to go to France
“He doesn’t just drink blood, haven’t you seen him drinking this strawberry juice or whatever in the pub?”
“I heard that John Harvey gives him blood from a bottle, and they pretend its fruit juice.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Because John Harvey is a vampire too, they’ve known each other for, like, a thousand years.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. I heard that everyone in the pub is a vampire… apart from us.”
“No way. Maybe we’re vampires too.”
“Let’s find out- tonight…”
Lloyd’s phone rang at nine o’clock.
“Evening,” he answered.
“Evening, sir,” said Clive. “We’ve done it, he’ll meet you at ten.”
“Excellent. I owe you one.”
Lloyd hung up the phone, and went through to his War Room to prepare his revolver.
When he had finished cleaning and oiling it, and was sliding the first bullet into the chamber, Anne walked into the room. She looked around her at the maps on the wall, gazing at the map of France
“What are you doing?” she asked him.
“Loading my pistol, don’t you know.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m going to see the chap who has been looking for me.”
“Are you going to kill him?”
“Perhaps, lady, perhaps. Best you stay here, it shall not take long. “
She nodded, floated out of the room to the kitchen and made herself a cup of coffee.
Soon afterwards, he put on his coat and gloves, kissed her good bye, and strode out.
Anne sat down on the sofa, lit one of Lloyd’s cigar’s, held her mobile phone in her hand, and thought.
Recently she had felt as though she had woken from a nightmare, or been released from a spell. She was awake that she had not been thinking clearly for many years.
She was awake that she had lived very strangely for many years, often in situation which were macabre and undesirable. There had been moments of excitement and romance, but mostly she had made very poor choices; or no choices at all. She had missed out on a great deal; her friends, her family, her education, and Paris
In addition, she was forming the opinion that Lloyd was not a great deal better than The Count de Saint Germaine. He was younger, and more handsome, but she suspected that he was only a little less dangerous and insane.
When the cigar was finally finished, she dialled a number on her phone which she had not used for a very long time.
“Mummy, it’s me…” she said in French. “Yes, me, Anne… I think that I would like to come home now, if I may…”
At ten minutes to ten, Lloyd stopped in the ally outside the Black Boar, checked that his revolver was secure at the back of his belt, finished his cigar, and strode inside.
Looking around him, he saw that the bar was quiet, as he had hoped. John worked behind the bar, Tony and a friend stood at it, and no one else was around. He had instructed the Goth couple not to be present, and was pleased that they had obeyed.
“Evening Harvey
“Evening Lloyd, how goes it?”
“Quite well, old boy. Need you to watch my back tonight.”
“Don’t want any trouble on my land, Lloyd.”
“Nor to I, old chap. Am just meeting a fellow here. If we leave together without attracting your attention, then all is well.”
“Understood.”
Lloyd took his drink to a table in the far corner of the room, facing the door. As usual, the music was not to his taste. Tony had been at the jukebox, and Thunder were playing.
At exactly ten o’clock a man walking in, and Lloyd knew that it was his man. He was tall and athletically built, and dressed like a London
Lloyd knew that he was looking at a hero… And was glad of it, because an honest man would be easier to lie to.
He waved flippantly at the man, and Hunter stalked over.
“Are you, by any chance, looking for a man by the name of Lloyd,” Lloyd said to him.
“Yes I am, may I ask who you are?”
“Why, my good sir, I am the man who will tell you where to look for Lloyd, who are you?”
“James Hunter.”
“Well, Mr Hunter, if you will be so kind as to take a seat, I shall tell you how to find this Lloyd of yours.”
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