Free Joint Enterprise (The Romney and Marsh Files Book 3) by Oliver Tidy Page B

pursue their enquiries, but now she was experiencing a sense of foreboding. If Romney was coming up here simply to bait Hugo Crawford and make sport of Wilkie, she didn’t really want anything at all to do with it.
    ‘Something I need to ask Crawford.’
    None the wiser, nor comforted, she could do little other than follow on dragging her suspicions and anxieties behind her.
    They followed signs and increased activity into the bowels of the castle. They were stopped by Samson Security employees and forced to show identification twice more. Eventually, they found themselves within a large stone-walled enclosure that carried the stench and noises of contained livestock.
    The police heard before they smelt before they saw sheep, cows, goats, pigs and horses, penned and tethered.
    Carefully, they picked their way across the carpet of compacted and soiled straw towards where lights blazed and human activity was centred.
    Unnoticed they came up behind a huddle of people. Hugo Crawford’s unmistakeable public school tones were necessarily raised above the general intrusive din of the confined and probably anxious animals.
    As they found themselves an angle to view the focus of the action and wait for Crawford to become available, Marsh was dumb-struck to see the unmistakeable boyish features of a household-name actor dressed in a uniform of the Napoleonic period listening attentively to Crawford’s direction. He was a lot shorter than he looked on the telly.
    ‘Now, Rupert, what I want to see is you looking a combination of furtive, guilty and aroused , as you run your eyes and hands over the flanks of the sheep. I want to feel your sexual tension, your sexual frustration. I want to understand your lust and your irrepressible desire to join with one of these lucky creatures. I want to believe in you, Rupert. Talk to them. Caress them. I want to know that you know that what you are about to do is wrong. It’s against God, against morality and the law. You’ll surely swing for it if you’re caught, but you can’t fight it. Understand me? You must have her.’ Rupert nodded, his fierce concentration clouding his thoughtful and handsome face.
    And all Marsh could think was don’t do it, Rupert. You might be an actor; it might be just a job, just a part to play; you might need the money, but don’t do it, Rupert. You are surely destined for greater things, higher things, Hollywood even. You will never live down the reputation and the sniping that you were desperate enough – financially or sexually – to rut with something on four legs. People will never forget it and they will never let you forget it. You are a fine and successful actor with a bright shining future. Don’t throw it all away on a whim, or an artistic statement. It’s what they would all remember you for. Surely you don’t need to stoop to this, or that ewe. Look what happened to Charlton Heston after he French-kissed a monkey making Planet of the Apes .
    To illustrate a point he was making, Crawford, clearly no stranger to farm animals, got himself behind a fat ewe, grabbed two handfuls of its thick fleece, bent himself at the knees and to the obvious and vocal protestations of the animal in question proceeded to simulate an act of the most base and sordid depravity. In doing so, Crawford indicated a strength that few would have associated with his frame.
    Marsh forced herself to look away. She looked at the members of the film crew and saw only professionalism etched into their features. She looked at the faces of the animals and saw only concern racking theirs. And she looked at Romney’s face to find him grinning from ear to ear, his school boy mentality conquering all. Maybe he hadn’t grown up after all. Clearly, he just couldn’t believe his luck. Marsh actually feared that he was going to laugh out loud and start pointing.
    There was a cry from Hugo Crawford and he leapt back from the creature with whom he had been simulating copulation. The