A Cold Moon Read online

  They were still holding each other, as if drawing strength from the other person. He gently cupped her face in his hand and pressed his lips to hers. The kiss soft at first became more intense the longer it continued. Julie reached her hands behind his neck and pressed tighter to him, so that he could feel her firm breasts with their hardened nipples against his shirt.

  “We could start trying right now if you like?” his voice was husky and his body was trembling with excitement. She could feel him hard against her groin and let out a little moan.

  “I just hope nobody comes calling in the next hour.”

  She was already undoing his belt, and quickly slid his trousers and pants down to his ankles. Whilst she undressed him, Will had unzipped her skirt and unbuttoned her blouse. In seconds they were standing in the kitchen, both stark naked.

  Had anybody rung the doorbell, it would have gone unnoticed, such was the intensity of their lovemaking.

  Chapter Three

  After talking things over at some length, they decided to forget about trying for a baby, letting nature takes its course and, if after three months nothing had happened, then they would go on the list for IVF treatment. Their life went back to normal and ‘the baby thing’ was not discussed. As Will so quaintly put it, ‘it was on the back burner’.

  The lads at the pub had been warned that the subject of babies was strictly off the agenda, a request happily agreed to. After all, there were far more important subjects like football, and now there was a general election looming. Although they did not all agree on their party loyalties, one thing they had agreed on was they would never fall out about the subject.

  When Tony Blair came to power in ‘97, Will had been an enthusiastic supporter, even reaching the point of joining the Labour party, but having obtained all the forms never actually completed them. As time went by, he got more and more disillusioned, the final straw being the invasion of Iraq, on the false premise, there being ’weapons of mass destruction’ which could be used against Britain. He had decided that maybe it was time for a change, even before Gordon Brown called the election, but who to vote for was the question? The expenses scandal exposed by the Daily Telegraph had shown that MPs from all parties were more interested in lining their own pockets than representing their constituents.

  Will had decided he would go to the meetings of all the candidates standing in the new constituency of Kenilworth and Southam, listen to their arguments, then make his mind up. His friends in the pub were scornful when he explained what he had decided. Although they were split in their support for the two main party candidates, they were all agreed that you had to be loyal to your party. Despite their reaction, he had made up his mind and nothing would change it.

  Dave and Robin were especially strong in their condemnation. They were both staunch Labour supporters and they felt that Will was ‘letting the side down’.

  “You can’t just abandon your class, you’re a working man.” Dave could not understand Will at all.

  “I’m not abandoning my class, I’m just fed up with all the bullshit that comes out of their mouths, and anyway, Tony Blair was not exactly a Socialist, was he?”

  “But the Tories are only out for big business and don’t care about the little people,” Rob trotted out the party line that his father had fed him since he was a boy.

  “Listen you two, the old divisions are gone, nowadays, there’s not a lot to choose between them, so I’m going to listen to the candidates and see if any of them want to do something for Kenilworth, or are they just cannon fodder for the party machines.”

  John and Geoff said nothing, although they were staunch Tories, they could see that Will had a point, they just weren’t going to give him the pleasure of agreeing with him.

  Will called time on politics, for that night at least. He wanted to talk about football. Leicester was still in with a chance of finishing in the play-off positions, whilst Coventry, who only a few weeks ago was a couple of points behind them, was in free fall, sliding down the table at an alarming rate.

  “You really know how to put the boot in, don’t you?” Dave gave a thin smile.

  “Well, that’s more than Cov’s forwards do,” Will could not resist the riposte.

  “You’ve still got to win the play-offs, so there’s a long way to go,” John said, although in truth, he was not that bothered being more interested in Rugby Union.

  “I bet you all a tenner that Leicester go up. Anyone brave enough to take me on?”

  The odds were against Will, but he had a feeling that this was Leicester’s year and £40 was not the end of the world if he lost. As a man, they all agreed to take the bet.

  “You don’t want to bet on the outcome of the election, do you?” Geoff asked mischievously.

  Will ignored his remark; he was not getting drawn back into a political debate. He looked at his watch, nine o’clock. The evening had flown by. He got up, said goodnight to the group and left for home, there were other more pleasurable duties to perform that night.

  Chapter Four

  The following Wednesday after school, Will had decided, as the weather had turned warmer, he would walk to Abbey Fields and try his luck with the metal detector. The nights were lighter now and he could spend a good two hours before Julie would have their dinner ready. He left the house equipped with knapsack and detector, and set out along the lane towards the fields. He had a map of the area, which he had divided into squares, each time, he religiously scanning each ‘square’. Having completed a full pass over the area, he shaded it in on his map. He had so far worked the whole area from the main road past the boundary wall of the church yard and up to the old Abbey ruins. The next ‘blocks’ on his map would take him up to the hedgerow that divided the park area from the field containing the pond.

  Part of this next area had been tarmaced to provide a play area for children, and the council had erected swings and slides there. He realised that he could not search over this area and just hoped that there was nothing of any value underneath, for if there was, it would stay undiscovered. There were a few mothers watching their children playing on the apparatus, which were now used to seeing Will, and took no notice of him. Some of the children had been curious when he first started searching the area, but soon lost interest when he found nothing.

  Will had methodically worked his way up and down the grid as drawn on his map, and after an hour and half, had not even had a peep out of the machine. He was now working down the side of the hedge that separated the two fields. What looked like an old lamp standard, but without the top that would normally hold the lamp light, stood next to the hedge about twenty feet from the Abbey ruins. Will was getting tired and thought he would just finish this last grid then call it a day, as the detector swept around the base of the lamp, the bleep…bleep burst into his earphones. For the last ten minutes, he had been on autopilot thinking what Julie might be preparing for dinner, so the noise startled him. He passed the detector over the spot again and the noise returned. He stopped, turned round to see if anyone had heard the sound, or noticed what he was doing, but there was no change in the scenery, the children were totally oblivious to him. He bent down, and taking the small trowel, scrapped away at the grass at the base of the pole. It was early April and had not rained for a few days, so the ground was hard, the trowel making little impression. He realised he would need the shovel to dig into the ground. He looked at his watch, Julie would be expecting him back within the next fifteen minutes, there was not enough time to thoroughly dig down to investigate properly. The location was easy to remember as it was at the bottom of the old lamp standard. Will made up his mind to leave it for now, go home, have his dinner and come back much later that evening, when, hopefully, there would be no one around to poke their noses in.

  Will packed his note book away and clipped the detector onto his knapsack. It had occurred to him that this might be another wind up by his friends and by walking away now, if they were watching, would not give them the pl
easure of him digging away for another disappointment!

  Julie was in the kitchen when he arrived home and shouted to him as he entered.

  “Will? Glad you’re back, I was just about to ring you on the mobile. Dinner is ready, roast chicken, okay? Can you set the table?”

  “Yes boss,” he said it without rancour. They both cooked, and whoever made the dinner the other set the table and opened the wine.

  Will poured them each a glass of wine and they settled down to the meal.

  “Well, tell me, did you find anything?”

  “I’m not sure. I got a full strength signal but it was getting late so I didn’t stop to dig down, anyway, the ground was fairly hard so I will need the shovel. It’s probably a false alarm, but I’m going back later when it’s quiet and hopefully, no one’s watching.”

  She smiled at the memory of the joke his friends had played on him. She knew how disappointed he had been and desperately hoped that he would find something, even if it wasn’t a treasure trove.

  After dinner, Julie settled down to mark some homework she had set and Will caught up with the day’s papers including the election manifestoes which had been published over the previous two days. He had to admit that neither of the major parties was very inspiring, and more and more he was leaning towards the Lib/Dems. Throughout the credit crisis, he had been impressed with Vince Cable, their Treasury spokesman, and whilst not agreeing with everything he said, he liked his honesty and straightforwardness, which seemed in sharp contrast with the constant sniping and failure to answer any questions from Labour and Tory spokesmen. If only they were not so keen on Europe then he would be inclined to vote for them, he might even do so in spite of his antipathy to the EU.

  He looked up from the paper, it was already ten o’clock. He had not realised how quickly the time had passed and he wanted to go back to his ‘find’.

  “I’m just popping out for about half an hour to see if it was a genuine find or just another rusty old nail.”

  Julie looked up from her marking.

  “Do you want me to come with you?” She was pleased when he shook his head. She had at least another thirty to forty minutes marking and needed to get it completed that night.

  He pulled his Parka on, picked up the knapsack and shovel, before setting out to the fields. Although the days had warmed, the evenings were still cold and the difference in temperature was at least ten degrees. The night was dark and, as it was a new moon, there was no illumination, save for the street lamps. As he walked towards the park, he remembered when he was a boy his father taking him into the garden to show him the stars in the sky, teaching him the names of the constellations, showing him the pole star and explaining the Latin names together with their more common names. On nights like tonight with no moon visible, it being either the start of a new moon, or the waxing of the old moon, his dad always called it a ‘cold moon’, explaining that with no light emitting, there was no warmth. As he grew older and knew that the moon did not give any heat, he challenged his dad on the term, but his father would not budge.

  “It’s a cold moon and always will be,” his father had insisted.

  Will did not argue, the term seemed appropriate, even if it was not logical. From that point onwards, he also referred to a new moon as a cold moon.

  Tonight was a cold moon.

  Will reached the spot under the old lamppost and set the knapsack down on the grass. He had not bothered to bring the metal detector; it was just a case of how far down before he struck pay dirt.

  Although the top layer of the grass and soil was firm, underneath it still held the moisture from the winter rains and the digging became easier. He had dug down about one and half times the depth of the shovel’s blade when he heard the sound of metal on metal. He knelt down, carefully scrapping away at the soil, as he did so another clang, then another encouraged him to continue. Taking out the pencil torch from his knapsack and shining into the hole, he could see a glint as it played on the metal object. Holding the torch in his teeth, he crouched down and scrapped away the earth around the object to reveal a silver case. Gently digging under the case, he loosened it free. It was a silver cigarette case.

  He wiped the case with a cloth, the silver shining in the light of the torch. It had a hallmark on the back with a monogram on the front bearing the letters M D G.

  This was defiantly the most valuable item he had ever found and although not ancient treasure, must still have a value. He wondered if there was any clue to its owner inside as he clicked the clip that held it shut. The case opened to reveal a piece of folded card. He opened the card, which had been folded into four and spread it out on the grass.

  Will’s mouth fell open with surprise. He blinked and looked again, but there was no doubt. The card was in fact a photograph, but not one that he would have ever imagined.

  The image was of a room with a bed in it and a naked young man bent over it with his hands outstretched on the bed cover. Behind him was another man who seemed older, also naked… buggering the young lad.

  Will felt sick. He was not a prude and certainly not homophobic, but to see the act so graphically represented had shocked him.

  Will quickly filled in the hole that he had recently excavated and packed away his tools. He needed to get home and have a drink, preferably a double.

  Julie heard the front door shut and called out from the living room.

  “That didn’t take long. I suppose it was another false dawn.” There was a hint of irony in her voice for she secretly hoped that one day he would come home with a knapsack full of gold. When there was no response, she got up from her chair slightly put out by Will not acknowledging her. He was in the hall hanging up his Parka.

  “What’s up? You look as though you’ve seen a ghost? Do you want a cup of tea?”

  “No… but I could do with a large whisky.”

  She was surprised. Will was not a big drinker and it was unusual for him to drink spirits during the week as he liked to have a clear head in the mornings. Even young children could be very demanding and certainly very noisy. She poured him the whisky and he slumped into the chair.

  “Now will you tell me what’s going on?”

  “I found a silver cigarette case…”

  “But that’s good, isn’t it?” she interrupted.

  “Just let me finish. As I said, I found this case and opened it to see if there was any way of identifying the owner and…” His voice faltered, his mouth dry, not able to get his words out.

  “Come on, what was in it?” She was getting irritated now; it was not like Will to be so reticent.

  “Look for yourself.” He took the photograph from the case and handed it to her. She stared in disbelief at the image.

  “Good God! Why on earth would anyone take a picture of that?”

  “That’s exactly what I thought. As you can see, the picture was taken from the side and you can’t see either of their faces. The older man has turned away from the camera and the young man’s arm is blocking his face. The only thing I have noticed, looking at it again, is the older man is wearing a gold Rolex and there seems to be a tattoo of some description on the back of his wrist partly covered by the watch.”

  “What are you going to do, report it to the Police?”

  “I don’t know. It’s not exactly illegal, is it?”

  “Yes, but the case is lost property, you should really hand it in.”

  “I can’t see anyone rushing into the police station wanting to claim it, can you?”

  She laughed and it seemed to lift the tension that had been present since he came in. Even Will had to smile, though the whole thing still seemed unreal. What should have been a little celebration at finally finding something, had turned into a dilemma of what to do next. He decided he would sleep on it; there was no urgency. No one had seen him digging, so no one needed to know anything about it, he could throw the case in the bin and forget the whole incident. None of his friends thought he would ever unearth
anything, so there would be no questions from them; they had stopped asking how the hunting was going long ago.

  He finished his whisky and made his way up to bed. Julie was in the kitchen making a cup of tea to bring up with her. By the time he had undressed and got into bed, he had convinced himself that he should forget the whole incident.

  Chapter Five

  Will had put the incident of the cigarette case out his mind, but had not thrown it in the bin, which had been his first thought. Instead, it was sitting at the bottom of the drawer in his bedside cabinet.

  A week had gone by and the newspapers were full of election fever. All the parties had announced their candidates and published their manifestoes. The divide between the two main parties was closing and the smart money was on a hung parliament, with the Liberal Democrats in the position of ‘Kingmaker’. Will had made up his mind; he would attend the public meeting of each of the candidates. Initially, four candidates had been announced, Nicholas Milton (Lab); Nigel Rock (Lib/Dem); Jeremy Wright (Con) and James Harrison (Green) but a fifth had thrown his hat in the ring a few days after the others. Martin De Glanville (Independent) was standing as an anti-sleaze candidate. Will was intrigued and was interested to know just exactly what De Glanville hoped to achieve. He had read a piece De Glanville had written in the local paper. It appeared the main thrust of his policy was to reduce the expenses MPs could claim and cut out the blatant corruption the majority of the last parliament had managed to get away with. On the face of it, Will had to admit he had a lot of sympathies with the guy’s sentiments, but failed to see how one man could make a difference. Will, nevertheless, decided to attend his meeting, which was to be held that Friday. To get a bit of background on the man, he went on the internet to find out where he had come from. It appeared he was an ex-Tory who had tried unsuccessfully to get his name on the short list for the new Kenilworth constituency, but had not even made the last four. He lived in London, was a hedge fund manager who had made a lot of money in the boom years, and had been wise enough to foresee the credit crunch, moving out just in time. He was married to the daughter of a Baronet, who had been a model, but was now running a fashion boutique in Kensington. All in all, he did not, on the face of it, appear to be a man of the people and certainly, in Will’s eyes anyway, not a champion of the little man, so the anti-sleaze label did not appear to fit well.