Free The Runaways by Victor Canning

get. I have tried not to make a mess, except for some hair dye on the corner of the bathroom curtins. It is a nice house and I hope your wife gets much better.
    Signed, Hunted. (P. S. I can’t give my right name right now, for reasons) Also the bike, and some other odds and ends, which maybe I will have returned. Signed, H.
    He took the letter to a corner wall cupboard which he had previously looked into. It held bottles of drink and glasses and also a half-empty box of cigars. Smiler reckoned that Mrs Bagnall was not likely to open the cigar box, but the Major would when he returned… perhaps the first evening. He put the letter in the box.
    A few minutes later, the cottage locked, Smiler was back in the barn. He stowed all his loose stuff away out of sight under a hay bale. Dressed in a clean shirt and socks, his own jeans, the grey pullover and the anorak and the Wellington boots, he was ready to tackle Warminster.
    Shutting the barn door after him, he wheeled the bicycle from the car bay around the back of the barn. A small path led around it and out through a field gate a little above the main gate entrance to the cottage courtyard.
    Smiler freewheeled down past the cottage over the greystoned river bridge and began to pedal up the slope to the main road. He had already memorized his route from the map which he carried in his anorak pocket along with the handkerchief full of fivepenny pieces.
    The side road met the main road just above the village of Crockerton – which Smiler later found out was little more than a handful of houses with a post office and general store. He turned right on the main road and twenty minutes later was in Warminster. He had already given himself a lecture on how he was to behave once he had left his shelter. The thing to do was to act naturally and as though you had a perfect right to be doing whatever you were doing. People only noticed you if you let your worry about being noticed show. So Smiler rode into Warminster whistling to himself. He parked his bike against a wall in the High Street and went into a newsagent and bought a copy of the local newspaper. It was called The Warminster Journal and Wilts County Advertiser , and it cost him fivepence. He was rather pleased with himself that he had already taken out a few fivepenny pieces from his handkerchief, so that he didn’t have to haul his bundle out in the shop to get at his money. He put the newspaper in his pocket and then cycled around the town a bit to get the lie of the land. Although he was acting naturally, he knew that any moment something could go wrong. That being so, he knew it was wise to have some idea of his bearings and possible escape routes.
    He ended up in the free car park near the railway station, rested his bike against a wall and went into the cafeteria. Once inside, the warmth and smell of food made him realize that he was very hungry. He got himself a plate of sausage rolls, two slabs of fruit cake and a cup of coffee and then sat in the window where he could keep an eye on his parked bicycle.
    He drank and ate with relish. He decided that it might be going to turn out his lucky day. He’d got fresh clothes, a fresh appearance, a bike to get about on, and money in his pocket. So far, no one had so much as given him a curious glance, not even a policeman who had walked past him on the pavement as he came out from buying the newspaper.
    On the inside of the very first page of the newspaper, under the Situations Vacant column – sandwiched between Experienced Sales Woman wanted to take charge of boutique (outer wear and underwear departments) and (believe it or not and Smiler had to chuckle) Male Cleaner, full or part-time, required at Warminster Police Station – was a job going that sounded right up his street. It read:
    STRONG LAD wanted, kennel work, experience not necessary, good wages, free lunch. – Mrs Angela Lakey, Danebury Kennels, Heytesbury.
    Well, Samuel M., he thought,