Free A Bright Moon for Fools by Jasper Gibson Page B

and tore off, leaving Slade running after him until he collapsed on the bonnet of a parked car,
heaving out his breaths, the knife still in his hand. People were staring and pointing. Slade panicked. He ran back to his own car and drove off in the opposite direction, back to Sussex, driving
right up behind people on the motorway until they moved, beeping his horn and shouting at everyone to fuck off.
    Slade might have lost the trail there, but he went to see his
eorlderman
, the leader of his Dark Ages re-enactment group. Peter Dunstone, a retired West Sussex police chief in his late
seventies, was a living history enthusiast so lost in his favoured period that he plaited his beard. When Slade, one of his best
thegns
, told him that Harry Christmas had dishonoured his
mother and the memory of his father – the great Saxon sin – he was only too happy to reward his loyal subject by abusing powers meant for the prevention of terrorism. With a few phone
calls to his old friends, he obtained details of Christmas’ passport use and credit card purchases. Slade rang the outdoor pursuits company where he was working as a paintball marshal and
told them he had a family emergency. He booked himself on the next flight to Caracas. Once installed in the hotel room he called his
eorlderman
who told him that a secured credit card
registered to Christmas had been used to book a room at the Gran Melía. Slade went straight there in a taxi.
    The elevator doors pinged open. A wealthy family. They pinged open again. A group of businessmen and a child. Something caught Slade’s eye to his right, across the lobby
floor. He thought he saw a cat rush behind a chair. He looked again – the man on the chair – his hair, his suit, the way his head tilted back as he read – the man on the chair was
his father. Slade stood up. He was in trouble for losing the hunting knife. The man closed his newspaper. Slade refocused. The man stood up. It wasn’t his father. Now he was coming closer, he
didn’t even look that much like him.
Ping
. More businessmen. Again and again the elevator doors opened, offering everyone but Harry Christmas. After several minutes he had another
conversation with the duty manager who sent up a porter. The porter returned with an empty suitcase.
    “This is very bad,
Señor
– your friend – we are waiting for—”
    Slade ran off into the hotel. He ran around the pool. He went into all the restaurants and bars, up the emergency staircase and along the corridors, into the business centre and even the
conference rooms. He ran outside. He ran around the hotel. He ran back in and went downstairs and into the gym, the sauna and then the jacuzzi.
    The air was heavy with mist. There was a thin, elderly Venezuelan man, hairy as a bear, in red goggles and blue swimming cap. He was bobbing up and down playfully in the water. He waved at
Slade.
    Slade returned to the concierge desk. “I need to see his room.”

14
    C hristmas put down the receiver and then put on two pairs of trousers. He tightly folded as many of his clothes as possible into a plastic bag. His
new suitcase would have to stay.
    He put on his Panama hat and left the room. Instead of taking the guest lift, he took the service elevator to the ground floor and headed in search of the staff entrance, his heart full of
remorse that there were at least two restaurants on the lower ground floor that must remain unassailed. Christmas walked as far as Avenida del Libertador before he realised that he’d left
Emily’s book on the bedside table.
    “What the fuck is wrong with you!” he cried out. He cursed and shook his head and studied the sky. He had no choice.
    Outside the staff entrance, he ducked behind some bins and stuffed the plastic bag and his hat out of sight. He smoothed down his hair and strolled confidently back into the staff entrance,
playing the part of the idiot tourist. “This way? Sorry, what? Thank you, thank you ...”
    He took the