“Running barrels?” Marcus felt the small hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. “You run barrels? In a cellar?”
“Yes,” Ben replied honestly. “In the Dog and Ferret in Retterton. They have a brewery out the back. I run barrels for them. The pay’s not much, but it is enough for me to be able to put some aside for a rainy day.”
Marcus studied him for a moment and shook his head in disbelief as he thought about all of the trips to Retterton he had made only to lose the lad at the tavern. No wonder he had disappeared, he had been in the cellars and the large barn out the back. Relieved to now have one problem solved, Marcus turned his attention back to the situation they were in now.
“He is sticking to the woods, so nobody sees him,” Ben whispered.
“He knows how to creep around silently,” Marcus murmured, fully aware that this was a skill that had to be acquired, and took many hours of practice to perfect.
Anybody could creep around. Most people, at some point in their life, had to tiptoe somewhere. However, to move right past someone without making their presence known was a real skill. Marcus had perfected his ability to do it from his many night-time sojourns working for the Star Elite.
What had Mr Ball done in life to teach him? He mused silently.
Beckoning to Ben to keep up, they set off after the artful lodger. They didn’t go far before someone else left the house through a side door.
“Who is that?” Ben gasped in astonishment.
“Mr Gillespie,” Marcus replied thoughtfully. “Strange time to be bird watching, isn’t it?”
“Just what the Hell is going on?” Ben growled. “There are more people up and about at night than there is in the daytime.”
Marcus looked at him. He was starting to like the lad. “I was hoping you might be able to tell me that.”
Ben shrugged. “Who do we follow?”
“Both of them,” Marcus replied confidently. “I have little doubt that they will both meet up somewhere.”
“How do you know that? Do you know them?” Ben peered at him suspiciously.
Marcus shook his head. He couldn’t explain because he would then have to admit to Ben that he had searched the other guest’s bedchambers.
“Does it look like normal behaviour to you?” he murmured with a nod toward the two men creeping, several feet apart, through the undergrowth in the middle of the night. It was clear that they were both heading in the same direction as well.
“No,” Ben murmured thoughtfully. “I think you had better tell me what is going on. Who you are, and what you are doing here.”
“Later. Right now, I am more interested in what the criminals are doing. Coming?” Marcus murmured before he disappeared into the shadows.
“Where are you?” Ben whispered as he tried to see him in the darkness.
Marcus sighed and stepped forward. “Come on, keep up.”
“Why am I coming with you?” Ben gasped, trying to prise Marcus’ hand off his shirt.
“Because whoever they are going to meet might be local. I need you to identify the men for me,” Marcus explained as he hauled Ben after him.
Ben also had a tendency to be a little elusive. Marcus had no intention of letting the lad go until he had seen just how much danger he was in and found out for himself what Ben was stealing. Preferably before he got himself, and Jess arrested.
That thought made Marcus’ lip curl. The prospect of Jess having to spend any time in the dark, fetid walls of a dank jail cell somewhere made him want to punch something. Propelled by that mental image, he hauled Ben across the village with him.
He knew he was taking an incredible risk, but also very aware that Ben had a wayward streak a mile wide that Marcus could use against him. Whatever people told Ben to do, he usually did the opposite.
Ben didn’t know it yet, but he was going to provide Marcus with the leverage to make sure he stayed on the straight and narrow from now on.
“What are they up to?” Ben whispered as he watched Mr Ball slip into the back door of the small cottage opposite the tavern.
Marcus hoped that Joe was around somewhere, and would come to find them but didn’t mention him to Ben.