Chapter 7: Poseidon Regeneration Industries

Standing shocked momentarily at the edge of the area where my VW was parked, it took me a few seconds to take it all in. A fast attack by Charlie had put our man out of commission. She lay over his unmoving body, keeping him sedated in some way by her hands near his neck.

I had no idea who this man was, a sneak thief or an assassin? Whatever the case, I had to think of the repercussions. I wasn't sure what type of hold Charlie was using, "Don't kill him," I urged, seeing that the man was not moving. Somewhere I knew that she could be starving his brain of oxygen, we didn't want to be held responsible for his death. That would cause a countrywide search for us, and enough people had seen us for good descriptions to be circulated.

This was a real mess.

Charlie's attention was still devoted to keeping her subject subdued, and as far as I could see he was unconscious. "He-he was getting our car stash. He had it in his hand."

She meant the wad of a few thousand pounds that I had stored in what I thought was a place well hidden, stuck behind the dashboard of the car. Obviously this man was some form of professional who had identified the stash very quickly.

Not moving her fingers, she indicated with her head what she meant. The envelope we had hidden in the VW was dropped in the footwell near his open hand.

Bastard!

His very existence was dangerous as far as I was concerned. The danger of a killer having traced us was more than obvious, he could have told others. Even now they could be on their way. We were in danger.

The alternative, that he was just a thief, to my mind presented a problem almost as severe. There was no way we could just slap him on his wrist and send him on the way, asking him to forget us. No self-respecting thief would ever do that. He would realise we had something to hide. No, his presence would necessitate police intervention, and then our presence would be noted.

I was scared of any police report that could get back to people searching for me. Whatever happened, I wanted to avoid that at all costs. The very fact that he had broken into my car meant that this was going to be very difficult to cover up if the police were involved. There would obviously be details of the vehicle taken that could, in time, quickly identify that it was not registered to us. Again, it would tie us into the car and prove much easier to trace us. This was a clusterfuck of the biggest proportions, whatever the cause.

My immediate reaction was that we had to move fast, first of all to identify who this was, and then to tidy the situation up as quickly as possible and get the hell out of Dodge. There was one saving grace; I had just spent the last couple of days packing up ready to leave. That was the only thing in our favour.

Our immediate problem was to pull the semiconscious man away from the open door of the car, where he wouldn't be in a position where he could easily be seen by anybody just walking by. Together we dragged him to a less conspicuous place and then, as we did so, I tumbled upon it.

There was a large 4X4 vehicle parked nearby that had never been there earlier. Was that his?

I walked over to it, discovered it was unlocked, and immediately everything began to make sense. In the back were about ten flat screen TV's of the type installed in the larger mobile homes on the site. All the evidence pointed to his being a sneak thief, and a successful one at that. I saw the various valuables such small CD players and the like were also piled in there.

On of the rear seats was a bag that I shook open. It was obvious that many people departing to the beach had left their valuables packed in their mobile homes so they didn't get lost or damaged by the sand or seawater. Rings and mobile phones tumbled out of the canvas bag, together with a couple of dozen banking credit cards in different names. He had taken anything of value and that included bottles of whisky and vodka.

I wondered how he had been able to retrieve so much in the short time that the mobile homes had been emptied as their people went for their afternoon visit to the beach. A bundle of keys of the style used in the mobile homes solved the solution to that. Yes, it was a very accomplished and speedy thief who had, in all probability sussed out his targets, before jumping in today.

I reckoned we had a couple of hours before the holidaymakers started drifting back from the sea. It could be as long as three or four hours, but then anyone could pop back to fetch a ball, swimming kit, or a drink at any time and raise the alarm. We had to move fast.

My automatic reaction was to pack our car and just scarper. That left the problem of our semi-conscious friend. My natural law-abiding attitude didn't want him to get away with his thefts. And then it came to me, as Charlie asked, "What do we do? I can't keep him sedated for hours."

"Can you let him come to a bit at a time, and every time he wakes up give him a drink out of this?" I unscrewed the top from the Vodka bottle.

"What?"

I tried to set out my reasoning, "When you got him, did he see who you were?"

"Well, no. He was stretched out over the seats reaching behind the dashboard. I jumped on him, and he was unconscious without even turning his head."

That was our first saving grace.

"Then we want to make him drunk so he'll not even remember what happened. It'll take some time to get him inebriated, but I need upwards of an hour to clear up the caravan and leave it as clean as possible. It's a good job we've been getting ready to move out. You know what to do?"

"Every time he comes to, offer him a sip, a good gulp of the vodka. It won't happen immediately, but over half an hour or so he should be getting plastered. Keep pouring it down his throat."

Letting Charlie control our subject, I rushed into the van and started piling everything into the back of our car that had to be gone before the police arrived.

How had we ever bought so much stuff? The fully packed rucksacks went in first, they were already almost packed, then the tent and sleeping bags. I never realised we had bought so much. Just Charlie's textbooks and a few guide books took three trips. Then there were the clothes. The cupboards appeared to be full of them. A Tai Chi ball and Charlie's kit, my running gear, trainers, sandals, shoes, boots. The trouble was we didn't have bags or suitcases to put all these things in. Then over to the small gizmos like the blender and a few kitchen implements that we had picked up, condiments and food, I wanted to leave nothing. I didn't want it to look as if we had been forced to leave in a hurry.

It was a hot afternoon, and despite the fact that I wasn't wearing very much I was soon perspiring. The only consolation was that our caravan was not located near the main part of the mobile homes site. Quick glances over in that direction revealed that it was deserted but for a couple of those with young tired toddlers. I worked on.

Every time I passed Charlie she appeared to be getting another sip down Sneak Thief's throat. At least one thing was going right. That is, until I came back one time to discover that he had puked up all over the ground, fortunately missing his guard.

It must have been over ninety minutes later when I had finally emptied the caravan that I asked Charlie, "Is he OK to leave now?"

"As drunk as a Lord!"

"Go, have a look in the caravan and see if there's anything else that I left in there."

Of course she managed to find a few things left in the tiny bathroom and a couple of books. "I'll clean out the fridge," she offered, "and give the place a wipe over. It would be out of character to leave it in the mess it is."

And I thought it was tidy!

While she was doing that I made three or four trips to the dumpster and threw away stuff we just didn't need. By the time I came back, the living accommodation, was quite tidy. She'd even folded up our dirty bedsheets and left them ready to be washed with the other linen that had been provided.

After Operation Clear up it was now Operation Set up. Our subject was surprisingly receptive to another mouthful of vodka, as I left him in Charlie's care and drove the VW off down the beach road and up over the Hill Road, where I parked it on the grass verge ready for our getaway.

Jogging back down to the campsite Charlie and I folded Drunkard into his 4x4. She squeezed in beside him, while I tried to negotiate the gears and jerked my way out and along the beach road before turning up to the Hill.

From a vantage point above the T-junction of the beach road we could see that there was little traffic below. From here, it was a hell of a job getting Drunkard into the driving seat and putting his seatbelt on. Charlie took one of the stolen mobile phones.

I waited until the road was completely clear in both directions, took off the handbrake, and steered down towards the T-junction. Fucking hell! The 4x4 built up speed quite quickly and it was all I could do to swerve it around the sharp bend at the bottom and bring it to a stop, banging into the road sign - a traffic accident. Ideal!

Though I was a bit shaken, the result was just what I wanted. The car was slewed over the road and somebody would have to stop. Charlie was already on the phone to 999. "There's an SUV car on that big hill that meets the Beach Road, he almost ran over my six year-old daughter, the man's either mental or having a seizure. Someone better get out to help him or he'll cause an accident."

She had to stay on for some more details, giving a fictitious name and address, ending by saying, "I can't stay, I've got to get down to the beach with the children, everyone will be wondering where I am."

She was good at making up tales, I know I was almost believing her. She switched off the call and even disconnected the battery, though I had no idea why, before she wiped the mobile clean and dropped it on the back seat with the other stolen stuff.

We jogged back up the hill towards the parked VW. Ten minutes later, by the time we reach the top, one car had already stopped at the 'traffic accident'. I hoped that they had alerted the police as well.

All the time I had been packing up I had been considering where we should go next. Our plans had originally entailed going on to North Wales and visiting the mediaeval castles of Edward I.

"You really want to do that?" I asked Charlie.

The very idea that we should consider missing out on the best part of her history studies wasn't well received.

But I protested, "I don't want to go straight up the coast, somebody only has to see us once and that will point them in the right direction." I decided to head inland to Welshpool. I'm certainly not sure I chose the best route, starting off over the Hill Road, but it kept us out of the main traffic. The only trouble was that from time to time we came across other vehicles and were held up trying to pass them.

Though we had left mid-afternoon it was well after seven o'clock by the time we got through Welshpool. I made for the A5, the road that took the London traffic to Holyhead. We spent an hour searching for a bed and breakfast near Llangollen.

Taking the car down for a local pub meal we left as soon as we had eaten. The car still looked as if it were filled with refugees the way we'd thrown everything in. I parked up on the way back, and spent a couple of hours repacking it. By the time we got back to the bed and breakfast we just collapsed into bed and fell asleep.

The following day we carried along the A5 in the Anglesey direction, and then turned down the coast towards Caernarvon.

I remember when I was about nine or ten, Mum had taken me to Caernarvon Castle and it was one of the best days of my life. Unfortunately there was very little accommodation in the town, and we went some way out before we found a pub to stay, booking for couple of nights.

It was here that I reinstituted the original plans for the castle visits. The original itinerary had suggested that we first got to Harlech and the next morning that was where we set out for.

Wow! The castle was terrific as it emerged up from the sea cliffs, built in some part into the rocks. Understanding the reasoning behind the castle and its sea approaches, Charlie was not just impressed by the grandeur of the edifice, but we spent all day taking a few photographs and making diagrams, comparing different brochures, and understanding what it was all about. There's something about the dank dark overpowering stonework of any castle that easily makes us conjure up images of men in chain armour, bows and arrows, attacking armies and sieges. In those circumstances you can see the value of the difference of each weapon. Yes, and we understood why the castles were never taken by the Welsh who surrounded them.

Why was I putting off my visit to Caernarvon? I didn't want a continual run of castles to merge one into the other. We needed a break and the next day went for a long walk down the Lleyn Peninsula. A late afternoon lunch in a beer garden let Charlie get all her notes on Harlech sorted out after that visit.

It was the next day that we went into Caernarvon itself. Caernarvon Castle was restored a few hundred years ago. We arrived early and found parking under the castle walls. And wow! From the car park the battlements towered up well above us. They gave a tremendous impression of its invincibility, even before we went around the town and paid our entrance money to cross the drawbridge.

http://www.castlewales.com/caernarf.html

The first thing we did was climb the Eagle Tower where we surveyed the whole castle and the town walls which the castle protected. What is best about this castle is that many of the towers are in a good state of repair and can be visited as well as roaming along the ramparts at different levels. They've re-opened many of the towers' rooms though some exhibitions were not related to the mediaeval era.

This was the castle where Edward I offered to the Welsh their first Prince, announcing that he didn't speak a word of English. Of course his baby son didn't speak any Welsh either. It was here that the tradition of naming the eldest son of the king, Prince of Wales started. And it was also here that Charles, Prince of Wales, was invested Prince of Wales in 1969.

We spent all day there, and the only problem was that being the middle of the holiday season the place was a bit over full of tourists when you came across them in the narrow spiral staircases. Yes, I found it an emotive visit, but so rewarding to find how pleased Charlie was.

Again, I decided to have a break before the next history visit. Because of the good weather, lots of accommodation was already taken. We were making for Beaumaris on the Isle of Anglesey. This time I used the help of the tourist information office and we booked into a hotel on Anglesey. Yes, Charlie insisted we go mile out of our way and visit Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwyll-llantysiliogogogochnot* it was no more than a village on the Holyhead Road next to the railway line where the station parking was overfull with visitors. No, we didn't stay there, we'd already booked near a place called Rhosneigre.

A day spent on the beach and then reviewing Caernarvon Castle was perfect. Charlie had got into a real fervour, and that evening we made up for a relaxing day when we got to bed. I just hoped that we did not wake up too many of the other guests.

Preparing her for the fact that Beamaris was not in the same state of repair as the other castles we had visited, I had to explain to Charlie why so many castles in England have been ruined. "It didn't happen during fighting for the most part."

That surprised Charlie, "Why should anybody destroy a castle?"

They might have been built in the fourteen hundreds, but during the Civil War of the mid-17^th Century local landowners, Parliamentary or Royalist, who owned or could get control of a castle defended them and stood out against opposition troops. They couldn't be taken without artillery to knock the walls down with cannon. After the war, those that survived in private hands were almost all 'slighted', or purposefully destroyed, so that they could never again be used against the forces of the Crown. Principally the only undamaged castles were those in the king's hands, like the Tower of London, Windsor and the like.

We studied the literature on the Anglesey castle. When it was built, Beaumaris was one of the most sophisticated castles as regards a modern defensive structure in England. This fitted in well with Charlie's mediaeval warfare topic, showing how things altered over the mediaeval period.

"Why have castle on an island like Anglesey?" queried Charlie.

Fortunately I knew a bit of earlier stuff, "An island is a defensive structure all of its own, defended by the seas. In the First Century the last place that held out against the Romans was Anglesey, where the Druids were finally beaten in battle by the Roman general Gaius Suetonius Paulinus. Once they had crossed the stretch of water, the Menai Straits, the efficiency of the Roman army ended the last vestiges of Druidism.

The English similarly, didn't want Anglesey to become another stronghold against the power of the Welsh.

That understood, back to the castle. By now she could understand the various reasons for the more complex fortifications, and was not disappointed by the ruined state of the towers and many walls.

Again, I wish that we had come here earlier in the year, when there weren't as many tourists, but the mature approach of Charlie just ignored the screaming hordes of kids and casual viewers.

We returned to a Beaumaris hotel that night and I think it was a common sense that we tried to keep away from the crowds.

For our break the next day she wanted to go mountain walking. Of course, Charlie wanted to go up Snowdon, the highest mountain in England and Wales. Whichever route we took I knew that would find parking almost impossible on one of the passes. Not only that but in high season the paths would be crowded and the experience totally unreal. I decided on another mountain hike. To beat the holiday traffic we left early the next morning, this time crossing the Straits on Telford's suspension bridge, the first modern suspension bridge in the whole world.

Once in Snowdonia, we continued by the A5as far as Lyn (Lake) Ogwen. Setting off, we passed Lyn Idwal and made our way until we were overlooking Pen-y-Pas before heading East and then approached Tryfan on big circular route just as the mist came down. We had started off in the heat of a summer's day, but once we were in the clouds she was relieved that I had prepared us with anoraks and we had proper gear on.

It was a great long hike and we descended down to Ogwen, well worn out by late afternoon. But we felt good and found a couple of beds at Idwal Cottage Youth Hostel for the night. It was good choice because they had excellent facilities for drying out our wet gear. Yes, we both slept well, very well, like logs.

The next day, we made a quick visit to Conway Castle then decided to head inland to the ruined Denbigh castle. She liked the old town of Denbigh and demanded more bara brith there from a baker's in the main street. Who could deny her?

Yes, Edward I certainly made sure he subjugated the Welsh. Not only were the castles on the coast and in the hinterland, but the Welsh border was given over to the full control of the autonomous marcher Lords (marcher simply meaning borders). These were centred in Chester, Shrewsbury, and Hereford with defensive strongholds in between. They were all powerful and much hated nobles with more power than any other of his nobles.

It was one of their centres we made for next. Just across the border in England, we were only an hour or two into Chester. Like York, you could still get most of the way round on its mediaeval walls. A quick check and we were eating up the money quite quickly, but to hell with it! We put up at another rather good hotel for a couple of days.

Of course that first day we went around the walls and I had to explain that the hypocaust that we could see was not mediaeval, but Roman in structure.

The old town with its half-timbered houses intrigued Charlie. She was particularly enamoured by the two level mediaeval and Tudor Rows. The Rows consist of covered walkways at the first floor behind which are entrances to shops and other premises. Beneath them, at street level, is another set of shops and other premises. I don't think anything else exists like that anywhere in the world, well not until the present day multi-level shopping malls.

It was here, that evening, we discovered that in our travels we had lost, or more probably had stolen, half of our money. Damn! We tried to work out when was the last time we had all three stashes. We were damned if we could remember, though we were both pretty sure we had got both bundles from the caravan ten days earlier.

Charlie just had the impression it was her fault, but I told her that it was just as likely to be mine. It could have happened anywhere. In fact we came to the conclusion that it could have been that night when we repacked the car, a small envelope could have fallen out and lain unnoticed on the grass. With the mess the car was in, it could have even been thrown away with the rubbish we later junked from the sort out. "I could have done it, Charlie." I admitted. "In fact it was probably more likely to be me than anybody else."

"Then what do we do?"

"I'm not overly concerned, we can last quite a few weeks, probably up to a couple of months, but it doesn't give us any money to fall back on if something happens. We don't have reserve. I don't know what to do if these men who are after me actually found me. For all I know we would have to move quickly, maybe even without the car or anything else. It's the lack of any fallback money that worries me."

"You were going to contact the Swiss man again?"

"Herr Gunter, yes, but until today I thought I had plenty of time to let him sort the problem out."

Charlie recognised exactly how I thought, "You really are worried, aren't you? What are you thinking?"

"I'm wondering if now might be the right time to contact Switzerland again in the hope that the will I made has been published and taken the heat out of people chasing after me. If they haven't done that, then we've got to go and make other arrangements, probably start working for a living, get some seasonal jobs, cash in hand."

"I don't mind doing that"

And Charlie wouldn't mind, but that convinced me that I was going to help her get through exams. After all the effort she had put in, I felt I was letting her down unless I did something. I bit my lip hard, tasting blood. "Tomorrow morning first thing I'm going to ring Herr Gunter."

After I announced that, Charlie didn't say anything. She sensed how tense I was.

Even if she had not known the night before, she could tell that I hadn't slept well as we ate a good cooked breakfast. Had she been awake most of the night? I was ravenous.

"You know, you don't have to ring him today," she tried to help.

"I don't, I'll still have to make the call sometime and now I've made the decision I'll just be delaying matters, I'll drive a few miles out of Chester and make the call."

"Why do you have to go out of town?"

"I've no idea how the triangulation thing works on tracking mobile phones. I don't want us to be located in the centre of Chester or in this hotel." Taking the precautions seemed to make her more worried, making the dangers more relevant.

We packed up, our things in the car in silence, and took the first road out of Chester. It was a pity because there had been so much more to see there. The nearest motorway to the city was the A 53, which went to Birkenhead, this side of the River Mersey from Liverpool. I decided that this, being the largest local industrial conurbation, was the best place to suggest where we were holed up if we should be traced.

The M53 motorway had no service area on its short length, but we pulled off at the first built up place we could find. We were almost in Birkenhead by that time I pulled into an Asda store. I replaced the old battery in the third mobile. Of course it was only to discover that it had discharged over time. I swapped it for the battery in Charlie's phone and then rang the number that I had been given.

"It is Mr Scott?" a foreign voice immediately responded. "I am contacting Herr Gunter now."

I seemed to wait a long time, only for Charlie later to tell me that it was less than a minute before I recognised the Swiss voice I had spoken to once before. He wanted to get as much done before we broke contact. It was as though he realised that we might be short of money for the international call. He went straight in, "We have found a leak at this end, but cannot be sure that all the problems have been fixed. I'm sure that it has helped that we have circulated the details of your legal document. The most important thing to resolve the situation is that you come here as soon as possible to sign over the receipt of your assets, do you understand Mr. Mather?"

"Yes, I think so." I was going to argue that I was running short of money and detail the problems I had in moving about, but he immediately chipped in, "Mr. Mather, I have been waiting for your call and think the best solution is to act before anybody else can react to the fact that you have called me. Tell me, do you have a passport?"

"Er, yes."

"With you?"

"Yes."

"And your nearest airport, it is?"

"I'm not really sure." I suppose, given time, I should have told him we were not far away from Liverpool, though where Liverpool airport actually was, I have no idea.

"Well, can you tell me where you are?"

The immediate name Chester came to mind.

It is clear that he or somebody else who was working computer nearby was on the ball because he responded almost immediately. After I heard a few clicks of a keyboard, " Harden* or Broughton airport near Chester, do you have money to find your way there as soon as possible." After a short delay he added, "You will be met there."... (pause) "in about ninety minutes. Can you do that?"

It was clear that somebody else was there for I could hear somebody repeating various instructions. He announced, "Use the name of Poseidon Regeneration Industries. Can you remember that, Poseidon Regeneration Industries?"

I repeated that for Charlie's benefit as I started up the car and drove up to the entrance to Asda. Charlie rushed in the store and got a couple of maps. I was on the move back towards Chester when she found Hawarden Airport. She was getting good at this map reading malarkey, "Turn off at Junction Three and then make for somewhere called Queensferry."

It was only twenty minutes before we turned off the motorway and took the road signposted into North Wales. Just past Queensferry we saw sign to Hawarden, and in the village asked directions. Within forty minutes we were turning into what I thought was a factory.

The gatekeeper already had a note that I was arriving, and I parked up looking around to see where to go. A woman emerged from offices, walked over, and drove me to a long landing strip where we watched an enormous plane take off, "Its bound for Toulouse, carrying an Airbus wing," I was told "The wings for European Airbuses are manufactured here."

Strange how little you know, isn't it?

The woman assumed that Charlie and I knew what was happening. Neither of us liked to say that we didn't have a clue, though I did ask how long we would likely have to wait. What we were waiting for I wasn't quite sure. Yes, of course common sense told me it was an aeroplane, but I could see no departures or arrivals buildings.

I think it was when I looked at my watch she drew my attention to two bright lights approaching the runway steeply as a jet dropped speedily out of the sky. I was puzzled until I recognised this was a small business jet.

Was I dense or what?

It suddenly struck me that we had picked up nothing from the car, not even toilet bags. I had a stupid urge to suggest that we returned to get some luggage, but already the approaching aircraft had no sooner touched down and it was turning off the runway and approaching us. To hell with it! Surely they would have complimentary toothpaste and the like wherever we were going.

We watched from the edge of the tarmac as it was signalled in by one of those men with table tennis bats in each hand. The wind of the jets died away and chocks were put under the wheels. No sooner that happened than the cabin door opened and an attendant stepped down onto the tarmac. It was she whom we approached.

There was a quick exchange between the two women and some signature, by which time we were already climbing up the three or four steps into a leather upholstered cabin.

No sooner were we inside than the attendant directed us to any seats that we wanted, and the cabin door was retracted.The assistant proceeded to ensure that we were seat-belted in.