“Mother of God!” Aileen shrieked from the far side of the bar, as a split second later the sound of shattering glass filled the pub. Not the sound of a single glass but many. Too many. A cheer rose from all tables.
“What?” said Frazzle. Denial was the key strategy that Napoleon had taught him. Maybe it hadn’t been Napoleon, he would have admitted that much if an interrogator had pressed the point. It could well have been Norman Tebbit, but he’d fight the point that it was a key strategy. Not that anyone was asking. Aileen’s rhetoric hadn’t been clear and no-one else had reacted, other than the cheering drinkers, and so he was quids in, right?
“What?” he repeated.
McLoo, who had been playing shove ha’penny with him, was surreptitiously retreating towards the bogs. It was a little known fact that he was in fact an obscure relative of Marshall McLuhan, something that Frazzle would not have given two shits about, which was the reason that he had never mentioned the matter.
“You!” said Aileen.
Frazzle had been caught by this non-specific. There were no particular allegations and therefore nothing to deny or affirm. Frazzle had never seen Aileen in here before. What was her angle? “Attack is the best form of defence,” was Norman Tebbit’s well-known dictum on these matters.
“Where’s me fucking coin?” said Frazzle. “You stolen it?”
He didn’t like the way that she was advancing on him. She would have had to admit on reflection that for rookie bar-staff, she had achieved an unprecedented degree of authority after a single week, but then again, she knew Frazzle of old. He was, after all, a crony of her brother, and therefore not to be trusted under any circumstances.
“Bullseye!” she indicated the dartboard, in which the coin was embedded.
Frazzle felt thoroughly outmanoeuvred. Fortunately the whole of the ceiling crumpled with a sickening and massive thud. A gamechanger and a spectacular distraction, as was Epson Moore who had just rushed through the doors.
“Anyone got ten pence for the phone?” said Moore.