Trouble on the Heath (6 page)

He jammed the gun back into Malcolm's mouth.

When he heard the shot, the guard was drinking his thirteenth cup of tea of the day. He leapt so fast out of his seat that he spilt the drink over the table and stained his trousers.

He ran as fast as he could towards the house. The other two guards were doing the same. They all arrived in the living room at the same time.

A complete stranger was lying stretched out on the floor. His face and shoulders were a bloody mess. Sitting astride him was their boss, Grigori Koslov. His wife was standing by the open window. A curtain flapped in the breeze coming in from the garden. In the distance one of the American pit bulls was barking.

The clock on the wall ticked loudly and, it seemed, with deliberate slowness. In the centre of the dial was written “Bristol Temple Meads”. Eva Petrova Koslova had bought the clock as a birthday present for her husband last year. She knew he loved anything English – even though he didn't speak the language.

At this moment, Grigori slowly toppled forward onto the stranger, who pulled himself from under him at the same time. Grigori fell with a crash onto the hard floor.

The guards turned to stare at Eva. In her hand was the gun with which she had just shot her husband's brains out. They had landed all over the stranger.

“He didn't love me!” she said. “He only loved that oaf! That idiot! Anton Molotov!”

The guards looked at each other. It had never been their policy to interfere in a domestic argument.

So that's really the end of the story.

Eva Petrova Koslova seemed to take a shine to Malcolm, possibly because he'd kidnapped Anton. She made him promise to keep Anton in England. That was no problem because Anton had fallen in love with Malcolm's sister, Glenys, and Glenys seemed to be happy, too. Anton and Glenys went on to have two children, one of whom became a concert pianist.

Eva was found not guilty, when the three guards swore that they had been there the whole time and that she had shot her husband in self-defence. They didn't want to lose their jobs, after all, and now Eva was in charge.

Malcolm persuaded Eva to drop the planning application and keep the two houses exactly as they were. She sold one of them to the Managing Director of Malcolm's university. In fact she liked Highgrove Park so much that she moved into the other house herself. She said she really liked the view of Hampstead Heath and the burial mound.

Trevor Williams got lucky. Before Cynthia had time to hand the threatening notes over to the police, the story of the Russian involvement in the Highgrove Park shootings was all over the newspapers and TV.

Cynthia burned all the notes and persuaded Trevor to resign from his position as Head of Camden Planning. “How can anyone be happy in a position like that?” she said to him. “It would drive anyone mad.” Trevor agreed.

He also agreed to marry Cynthia, since she
had
gone to the trouble of proposing to him. And the next week he won the lottery again. Not quite the full £3 million he'd hoped for, but enough to set up a very successful business advising people on how to put in planning applications.

Angela persuaded Malcolm to resign his chairmanship of the Residents' Association, and Malcolm was more than happy to do so. He persuaded Eva to take over from him. So for the first time the Residents' Association had a chairman who knew exactly how to deal with outrageous planning applications, particularly ones put forward by Russian gangsters.

And Nigel the dog continued to pee on his favourite tree, unaware of everything.

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Terry Jones was born in Colwyn Bay, north Wales, and was a student at St Edmund Hall, Oxford. He is best known for his work with the comedy group Monty Python's Flying Circus.

Terry was one of the directors of the film,
Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
He wrote, directed and starred in
The Life of Brian, The Meaning of Life, Erik the Viking
and
The Wind in the Willows
. He has also made many television programmes, including
Crusades
,
Medieval Lives, Barbarians
and
The Great Map Mystery
.

Terry wrote the screenplay for Jim Henson's film
Labyrinth
and is the author of many children's books. These include
Fairy Tales, Fantastic Stories
and
The Saga of Erik the Viking
. He also wrote the academic works
Chaucer's Knight
and
Who Murdered Chaucer? Trouble on the Heath
is his first book of fiction for adults.