The Pursuit of Percipient

By David Pearce

Just what my doctor might have ordered – an adventure of my very own. How else could I have interpreted that gesture, the hand drawn across the throat, menacing and made in my direction. They were out to get me. Nothing for it but a headlong dash across Europe, hounds snapping at my heels. No sooner were they shaken off than the assassins, ruthless after dark throat slitters, silent, stealthy Asiatics out to get me and no sooner evaded than overboard I go. Nights bobbing on the Mediterranean followed by a leading role in the Sicilian tuna slaughter fest and a case of mistaken identity, papal intervention and the mafia outwitted at every turn. Just when I was looking forward to my mid-life crisis. Just after I had invested in a new pair of carpet slippers.

• Language: English
• Publisher: David Pearce
• Release date: Oct 17, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463151624

David Pearce

Long past my sell-by date but doing all I can to keep fit with daily exercise and a healthy breakfast I spend most of my time writing and listening to the radio with occasional excursions in the local countryside on my electric-assist bike. I live alone in southern France close to the river Rhone and possibly on borrowed time as there is a large nuclear plant close by.

Book preview

THE PURSUIT OF PERCIPIENT

DAVID R PEARCE

Copyright 2018 David R Pearce

Chapter 1 An explanation

Chapter 2 The view from the bottom

Chapter 3 Sweet dreams

Chapter 4 A matter of interpretation

Chapter 5 Supposing

Chapter 6 Assault

Chapter 7 Borne to water

Chapter 8 Mysteries

Chapter 9 Daleedlebleepableepa

Chapter 10 Miss Gracenote’s dilemma

Chapter 11 bob blob

Chapter 12 Nothing happens

Chapter 13 But if the while..

Chapter 14 Still nothing happens

Chapter 15 Comforts and dangers

Chapter 16 Media storm

Chapter 17 Bowling bouncers

Chapter 18 Doomed

Chapter 19 Hours before dawn

Chapter 20 Everything happens

Chapter 21 Imprisoned

Chapter 22 Escape

Chapter 23 Messina

Chapter 24 North of Salerno

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Chapter 1 – An explanation

Mr. Per...Mr. Percipient?

Oh! Greasley, please.

Mr. Greasley...tucked away behind this, whatever it is.

In the undergrowth...beware tigers!

It was a huge pot. The foliage that sprouted from it was dense, possibly dangerous, tigers, snakes.

Not quite enough for a whole tiger.

A cub, perhaps.

We simpered at each other. I focussed gratefully on her necklace and the delightful chest upon which it rested. Balloons popped. Suggestive shrieks from the darker corners. She had until recently been dancing with The Youth, the boy with ginger hair. Her delightful chest and cheeks were still flushed. But why had she come to search me out? Had she been sent? Why pick on me? Questions for later, for the moment I would enjoy her company. What is more enjoyable than the company of a young woman, not much more than a girl really, with flushed cheeks and a smile that challenges one to resist? And that hair! More sculpted than cut. Very sophisticated!

Are you enjoying the party?

I am far too experienced in these matters to reply, Well, I am now too cheesy and obvious, instead I demanded her name.

She said, I am Miss Gracenote, and you are the notorious literary critic.

I, I would have you know, am the chief literary critic for The Scourge, the head honcho. He who must be obeyed.

And read. I know. I am impressed.

I had a presentiment that here was a young woman who might very well know everything but was unlikely to be impressed by anyone lower than royalty.

And you are off to Sicily.

I was startled. Perhaps everything included the future. Perhaps she did know everything. She had not even had the decency to frame her intelligence as a question.

Are you tunnelling or ferrying?

So, there were limits but this was hardly surprising; I had not yet decided.

The band had resumed its assault and battery so that communication was about to become more difficult. I made the best of my opportunity and lowered my lips to the region of her ear. As expected she was deliciously perfumed and the warmth from her bare blushing shoulders wafted to my cheeks. If she were ferreting for information I would have been hard put to imagine a more delightful ferret.

You, I said, are a delightful ferret.

She said, Foxy. They usually describe me as foxy. Are you..?

Did she complete that question? Did I reply? By this time the band was doing its best to be heard in Torquay and then she was gone. As I leaned forward to ask her to repeat the question, to reply or to refresh the senses by inhaling deeply she turned her head, planted the cheekiest of kisses on my cheek and was gone. When next I peered through the foliage I saw that she had rejoined The (ginger) Youth and Olivia Prettyman, the three of them engaged in close conversation and I thought I intercepted a covert glance in my direction, The Youth, a sly turn of the head, but what was I doing here when I could have been...what could I have been? To be honest my options at this time were limited; a recital in the Great Hall, a lively folk group playing in The Pig and Plough (but there I might have run into my estranged wife) and I could not stomach yet another film involving aliens

So here I am surrounded by dense vegetation. Here I should explain, is the second, reinforced, floor of Celtic Tower, reinforced because of the density of the vegetation. A Miss Plenish, who may remain lost in the density, had a mania for indoor plants and an antipathy to open plan offices. She was given her head, the floor was strengthened to take the weight and The Jungle flourished. A clearing was made to allow for the band and dancing and the party commenced. It is still going on though some of the pack and despatch department are taking their leave.

This is the first of two parties. At the time I received my kiss (peck really) on the cheek the band was rocking Celtic Tower. This is a building of such monumental dullness and dominance that it won an architectural prize. A plaque may be seen just inside the entrance to the left. The building towers above the river that traverses the city and separates the cultural and cathedral from the commercial. The Tower is wholly occupied by Celtic Literary Enterprises.

The party under review is taking place on the second floor. Being open plan and half jungle it is ideally suited for the purpose and quite different from the venue planned for The Party at the End of Time; that is to take place outdoors on Devon pastures that will be swept clean (as far as these things are possible) of lamb droppings. As far as I know it is scheduled for late May/early June, leaving plenty of time for misunderstanding and adventure.

Though lavish and generously supplied with such party essentials as champagne, finger food, balloons, a deafening band and dark recesses this party cannot compare with the one that is to be held in deepest Devon; that one is to celebrate The End of Time.

Apart from their venues they differ in clientele and scale. The party-goers could hardly be more different. Amongst those invited to The Party at the End of Time, a colossal event that will involve the slaughter, sacrifice and roasting of at least one bullock, several rams and the consumption of a bowser of Devon cider (extra strong), apart from champagne and a variety of French wines, white, red and rosé, there will be local dignitaries, a Conservative member for somewhere, almost the entire membership of the Devon Branch of the National Farmers’ Union (Pig Rearing Division), with their wives, a coach load of little old ladies, a posse of poets in translation and the Cornish Wailers, amongst a host of other oddities. There are almost certain to be large numbers of the unwashed and uninvited. They will gather to celebrate the End of Time, after which the cosmos will be swept clean of debris and atoms and reduced to dark matter. Both the Red Cross and the St. John’s Ambulance will be in attendance.

This party was a more sober affair, though the cleaning ladies were to discover pairs of the tiniest panties they had ever seen in unlikely places for weeks after it was all over. They had been discarded by partygoers who had gathered to celebrate the arrival of Olivia Prettyman, the new CEO, who was whispered in conspiracy circles to have murdered her husband, and (possibly) the confirmation of the decision to publish the prophetic novel which describes and dramatises the events leading up to the final fraction of a milli-second – the end, that is, of time.

Most of the employees of Celtic Literary Enterprises were at the party. Their guests were almost exclusively Cornish language poets, their translators, writers of peninsula romances and their critics. The critics were obvious to everyone from their circumspection and the guarded, whispered comments that gave no excuse for the poets to cut up rough. The entire regiment of Cornish poets was present at the party because no one has ever devised a means of keeping them west of the Tamar when free drink flows freely. Windows were open to allow incriminating scents to escape into the air of Devon’s principal city.

Along with the dubious scents a mystery hovered in the air that the party had been expected to elucidate for the title, The Party at the End of Time refers both to the party and to the Devon epic by that name to be published in two, possibly three volumes by Celtic Literary Enterprises. This, it is generally agreed, is a modern masterpiece, vast in scope, generous in spirit and prophetic, but who is its author? The name on the title page is Clarence Duplicity Moreclay, a writer so mysterious and elusive that no one appears ever to have set eyes on him. He is suspected of being a Dartmoor Sage, a mysterious and elusive bunch at the best of times.

While I communicate my need for just one more glass of champagne you may be interested to know a little of the origins and history of Celtic Literary Enterprises. The firm, now celebrated internationally, began almost as a hobby. Frank Prettyman’s father, a solicitor, began by publishing Cornish poetry in translation. This was a modest success, especially amongst the tin-mining diaspora who longed for the mines and verses of home. But few bunches are more unruly and undisciplined than Cornish poets. When Frank took over the business he continued to feed the geese that laid poetic eggs but he was inspired by the thought that the golden ones would be laid not by free range flighty and possibly migratory birds but those who could be kept under closer control.

He took the advice of his uncle, a battery chicken farmer who kept so many birds per cage that they barely had room to squawk. Founding Celtic Literary Enterprises he recruited a whole batch of romantic lady novelists who specialized in romances that depend heavily on peninsula scenery, weather, ship wrecks, all-embracing cloaks, horses and, of course, horsemen. His ladies, prepared to die to see their outpourings in print, sold him their literary souls. He ruled them with a rod and paid them chicken-feed. The Arts Council grants and profits rolled in. This is the story as told by Frank Prettyman. I had been friends with him since childhood and I knew that his ladies were not the only inhabitants of the peninsula with a tendency to romance.

The champagne was warm. The party was winding down. There were damp patches on the floor as there are following any successful party. I could still hear bursts of laughter but I began to get the impression that they were becoming a touch desperate. It was a time for quiet observation. Olivia was still there, twisting to say goodbye and angling her fine face for kisses. She was still flanked by Miss Gracenote and The Youth. Earlier I had had an interesting conversation with The Bishop (one of the big beasts of Celtic) concerning The Youth. Neither The Bishop nor anyone else I spoke to appeared to know his name and most expressed surprise when I suggested that he must, surely, have one. The characteristic that drove everyone insane was his devotion to jargon. He used such expressions as it ticked all the boxes and touch base; the sort of thing that was at the cutting edge two weeks, or months, or years ago. The Bishop told me that if he repeated any of them just once more his foot would touch the base of his (The Youth’s that is) arse. The Bishop looks improbably like a bishop but no proper bishop would use such a vulgar word or suggest such a violent and unchristian action and he is one of Olivia’s senior executives. I think he must have been horrified by his bellicosity because he went on to explain that The Youth has irritating habits but he has two qualities that forgive him everything; the first of these is an air of excitement and incipient cheerfulness; the second is a habit of mispronunciation that endears him to all who are capable of recognizing them. In fact there are those in the senior ranks who lay traps for him into which he has the habit of falling headlong, offering as their excuse that his mispronunciations contribute to the gaiety of the nation. This practice has begun to impose limits on his cheerfulness.

But, I ask, doesn’t he have a rather anxious look?

A bloody good job too, explained The Bishop but I suspect an element of jealousy in this unchristian observation.

No one, except those with no knowledge of rugby, will be surprised to find that, according to his CV, he was a very effective scrum-half. It is just the sort of frenetic, puppyish position for which he was evolved. Miss Gracenote was attracted by his short ginger hair but she quickly brought him to heel when he tried a moustache. Could it be that The Bishop finds such gossip titivating as he approaches the onset of a middle-life crisis? Given the opportunity I shall tease him with this suggestion.

I now found myself in party limbo. Numbers were thinning; unattached ladies were noticeable by their absence, the band had begun to look as if they might be relieved to announce their last number and the people behind the bar were packing glasses away after washing them as the demand for refills diminished. What to do?

Since separating from my wife and daughter I had moved into a flat, renting from a lady who lived on the ground floor of her house that is located close to the city university. She had tired of students and had been grateful for the alternative: a quiet, non-smoking literary gent. of reasonable appetite and impeccable manners. I walked to a window and noted the reflection of the moon on the river. It was a pleasant night, just the thing for a stroll back to my digs. It was at this moment, as I turned away from my view of the moonlit river, that I intercepted a glance. You will be unaware of its significance but to me it was the psychic equivalent of a blow from a hammer. I need to explain but I shall delay doing so while I decide on my next move because the alternative to a quiet stroll is a taxi and an injunction not to spare the horses. It was a matter of interpretation: forgive a statement of the obvious but there are glances and glances and I now had two to access; the first from Olivia Prettyman, her face serious and hard, though this may be an effect of the spotlight that illuminated her; the second synchronised – the terrible twins, Miss Gracenote and The Youth. I felt what I can only describe as a frisson in my testicles.

You will suspect a tendency to dramatise. Was there, you ask, an accompanying gesture; a flat hand drawn across the throat, for instance? If there was I did not see it but this is no time to tell, no time even to untangle tenses, I have to act – my life might be in danger. I have decisions to make: do I sidle out in the hope of being unnoticed, use the service stairs to the loading dock area, move from shadow to shadow, or brazen it out, thank them for a splendid party, wish them all the best for a publishing coup, goodnight and I look forward..? It occurred to me that I had a brief advantage in that they did not know where I live.

I wished them an appreciative goodnight, received perfumed kisses from both Olivia and Miss Gracenote and a sweaty handshake from The Youth. Was he eyeing me up with death – my death – in mind? If so, would he or an accomplice follow me? I strode across the atrium style entrance confident that this was the better choice. Anyone tailing me would have had his, or her, work cut out to conceal themselves in this open space.

I walked out through the great plate-glass doors into one of those Devon nights that are the envy of every other county in the land, taking care to walk purposefully away and then dodging into a patch of shadow intensified by the light of the moon. No one emerged from the glass doors but I waited a minute or two longer concentrating my attention on the loading bay. There was some shouting and cars could be heard as the night-clubs on the quay closed but I could detect no movement in or around Celtic Tower. Had I walked along to the quay I could have picked up a taxi but I decided to make my way home on foot. You notice the inverted commas as I use the word home in a broad sense. I had lived there a matter of weeks and I felt none of the sense of permanence that the word home implies.

But I promised an explanation. I am the first to acknowledge that it is unusual to leave a party convinced that there is a possibility that this will be the last, that there are plotters abroad, that one may not make it home no matter how permanent or otherwise that home might be. The fact is that for anyone with an intimate knowledge of the business practices of Celtic Literary Enterprises this is not as unusual as it may appear and since I have now ventured onto a well lit and straight stretch of road I feel confident enough of my immediate future to relax, enjoy my night time stroll and take this opportunity, while nothing exciting is happening, to put you in the picture. You will be familiar with the idea of down-sizing; the notion of increasing profits by reducing the payroll. There was nothing innovative about Celtic’s approach in the initial stages. Peninsula businesses had used redundant tin mines for the purpose for decades, depending on the point blank refusal of Cornish policemen to descend and investigate. The reason the majority of Cornish policemen joined the force was that at that time the only viable alternative employment was to go down the mine and they were not about to start now. Crisis loomed when yet another madman decided that there was money to be made in tin. How were down-sizing firms to dispose of redundant executives now that the shafts were in constant, if temporary, use? The answer according to Frank Prettyman combined Divine Intervention, the company helicopter and a pilot with a genius for losing (redundant) passengers overboard.

There, I have become so absorbed in my explanation that I have overshot the short-cut though I ought to avoid narrow, dark short-cuts for a week or two until I am satisfied that I misinterpreted a gesture that in most circumstances bodes ill for the recipient; best stick to the well-lit road that loops through the university campus.

I turn abruptly and hallucinate – there, surely, a shadow dodging into another shadow but not quite quickly enough to conceal a flash of bright red hair. He should have worn a hat, the dog. I think of him as treacherous but on second, charitable, thoughts he may be motivated by ambition. Nevertheless, I would like to be able to assure myself that The Youth’s ambition does not involve my death but he may not be the only one with something to prove.

Further explanation: I walk the white line in the centre of the road while I decide whether I should murder my landlady. Why should I murder my landlady? I shall explain later, in the meantime what are we to make of the need to prove oneself as I mentioned in the context of The Youth and, though I did not mention her by name, Olivia Prettyman? To take them in order of seniority let me tell you all I know and hopefully all you need to know about her.

The reason why Olivia Prettyman presided over the party that is now all but over and did not share the honours with her husband is that he is dead. Normally the death of a CEO is a matter for regret or rejoicing but once those involved recover from the shock the next thought is for the future. By this time everyone knew that Olivia had every intention of stepping into her husband’s shoes and she had already done so. The party, as I may have mentioned, was held to celebrate this event but she still had an image problem on her hands as a result of Frank Prettyman’s dirty tricks, an unscrupulous rascal if ever there was one though to the relief of all concerned she had since her arrival worked hard to destroy the image that he had created of her. According to him she was a tartar, in the tradition of Medusa, Catherine the Great and Vlad the Impaler, only worse and even more so. They knew that he did not actually mean Vlad the Impaler but there was a woman from the same region who was every bit as appalling who specialized in virgins. No one could remember her name, though Miss Gracenote probably knew but they all shivered at the thought of what she got up to. It was an image of his wife that Frank had cultivated over the years for his own nefarious purposes. She was invoked in situations when people stood before him requesting a