Chapter Seven
The Anguish of Drake Murphy

This is where the story begins to get more sinister. Pick your panties from your crack, sit back in a comfortable chair, perhaps with a glass of something, and picture the scene:

It was evening, late dusk, a gusty wind was blowing dark grey ragged clouds across blue-grey patches of sky. A chill wind blew. The clouds parted to reveal the face of the moon, which hung low over the hill. The black, silhouetted frame of an ancient twisted oak seemed almost to envelope the pointed roof of an old inn. Two shapes, one large and one small, could be picked out against the darkening sky. The landlord was trying to extricate his cat from the strings of his 5-string fiddle (the cat had previously managed to finish off the remains of two pints of real ale left on a table). There was an eerie, wailing sound.

In an upstairs room of the inn, two tall, hooded, and cloaked figures held the wiry and emaciated frame of Drake Murphy down in a leather chair, his face depicting pure terror.
‘They’re going to hurt me. They’re going to pull my head off’, he thought, ‘because they don’t like my head’.
A face in dark shadow leaned over him. “I will ask you one more time Mr Murphy” said the menacing voice of Professor ‘Vol-au-vent’ Rowling himself, “Where is it now? Surely you know this, but choose to withhold the information for some mischievous reason of your own. You were, were you not, seeking for this thing yourself?”
“I spose I were”, replied Drake, sullenly.
“You mean, ‘I was’ surely; not, ‘I were’?”, snapped Vol-au-vent, with obvious irritation. Drake looked puzzled.
“You was?”
“Of course I was!”, exclaimed Vol-au-vent, “but you were; that is the point."
“Yes”, said Drake, helpfully. “I were.”.
“I was man. You were!”, insisted Vol-au-vent. “We both were. I mean I was and you were! Oh good Lord! It is simple English, man!”, he added in an exasperated tone. He paused, pacing around the room. “Now.”, he said, “We have established that you were looking for it. Where?”
“Dunno”.
“I mean, where were you looking? Where were you looking? Where is it now?”, screamed Vol-au-vent in ever more anguished tones.
Drake cowered.“I….I’ve told you, Colin” replied a frightened, rasping voice, “I was looking for it myself. I do not know where it is”.
“So, you do not know where it is, eh? eh? His face was now pressed against Murphy’s. “But you know where to look? Eh? Eh?”, added Vol-au-vent with menace, “Or you have a good idea, eh? Eh?”, he said, menacingly, “Who’s Colin?”.
“Elephant?” offered Drake in a small voice.

In the dimly lit room, Vol-au-vent’s servants moved something close to Drake’s face. He screamed and slumped in the chair, though neither had touched him physically. When he came back to himself again, Drake could smell the familiar, sickly yet acrid aroma emanating from a platter held in front of him. He looked as if he would pass out again, but Vol-au-vent was too cunning and too adept to let that happen twice.

“If you know what’s good for you, you will tell me all you know”, came the menacing terror of the voice, with added menace.
“This Rowling guy is an arse, but he’s smart” thought Drake between exaggerated sobs, “but I wish I’d never revealed to him that I disliked both macaroons and Bakewell tart. It was a stupid thing to do; just silly. Tschoh! Twit that I am. Tschoh”. Rowling wondered if Murphy had Tourettes.

In growing terror, Drake again heard the menacing whisper of the first cloaked figure, that is, the one on his left hand side, as it spoke, or appeared to speak, simple words, heavy with unspecified threat, and muffled, amid much snuffling and sniffing.
“You vill tell us, Meester Murphy, vee do not tolerate dizobedienze in zis organizazion! You vill tell uz vere it eez now, or you vill, you vill (he added, with a pause, for increased menace) eat ze marzipan!”. Drake was shocked, ‘This bloke had a BBC accent two minutes ago’, he thought, but he looked again at the sickly, unhealthy and pungent yellow substance.
“No! I can’t do it. No!, I don’t know I tell you!”. He looked left and right, as if he was a trapped animal looking for a way of escape from a ring of enemies. Then he blurted out, “He took it. He took it from me!, Colin”.
“If you do not tell us vere it eez, vee vill roll up zee marzipan into zmall ballz, and …. Vot? Vot did you say?”.
“Who took it?” demanded the other voice (that’s the one on the right), menacingly, “Did Colin take it?”.
“Hey! I’m doing it," exclaimed the first voice in a whining tone.
“Who’s Colin?”, asked Drake.
“Well you weren’t paying attention, were you?”, declared the other, “You were too busy pretending to be a German interrogator from a film. It’s not a game, you know.”.
“All right, don’t go on about it!. I thought it would be more menacing, that’s all ….”.
“Who’s Colin?”, Drake asked again.
“Silence! Give him the marzipan!”, commanded the menacing voice of Vol-au-vent. “You two are useless.”
“No, no, please! Not that! It was Weasel” sputtered Drake, “It was Weasel what took it, Colin.”

Rowling visibly reacted, as if in pain, but he let pass the grammatical error.
“What? What do you mean? A weasel took it? Vol-au-vent’s voice took on a composed, but still menacing whine. “How can that be? The torus is, I…, the doughnut is too big for a weasel to carry.” he spluttered.
The first voice offered, hopefully, “It could have been carried by two weasels, tied to a bit of string held between the incisors”.
A swallow and a throaty gurgle were heard from Murphy. “Colin”, he said. Two swallows, joined together, followed.
“Oh yesss, two weasels might have done it.” allowed the second voice, whispering, “but weasels are non-migratory”.
“What has that got to do with anything?” sneered the first.
“It doesn’t matter!” yelled Vol-au-vent in desperation. He turned the plate menacingly towards Drake, “How did this weasel carry it off …. and… why? Explain!”.
Drake sighed. “It was a man, not a mustelid.” he explained. The three interrogators exchanged bewildered glances.

“His name was Weasel. He took it. I hates him. We hates him foreverrrrr!” he wailed.
Rowling shuddered. “Hate; not hates!”, he corrected irritably, “and there is only one of you, fortunately. Good Heavens man! I don’t know what they teach people in schools nowadays.”
“Neither do I”, replied Murphy, annoyed, “They didn’t have schools when I was a lad”.
“Rubbish!”, interjected Vol-au-vent. “I went to school. Everybody went to school”.
“Ha!”, trumped Drake Murphy, “That was later”.
“When?”.
“Not telling!”
“Why not?”.
“Coz I don’t want to. Don’t like schools; don’t like government. Silly Campbell-Bannerman, Colin”.
“Who?”, came Vol-au-vent’s confused reply, then, “If you are talking about British political history, it was Henry. Who is this Colin?”.
Drake looked at him as if he had lost his mind. “Never mind”, continued Vol-au-vent, “Who and where is Weasel? Where can he be found?”.
“Don’t know.”, Drake replied. “He said he was from Wrexham. That’s all I know.”
“Wrexham?” said a hooded figure, “We’ll never find it”.
“It’s up the M1, then the M6, then turn left”, whispered the sinister voice, helpfully.
“Give me strength!”, muttered Vol-au-vent, as the three went out of the room.
“Perfumed ponce”, said Drake, when it appeared to be safe to do so.