Blasted Past: Part Twenty-Two

Ms. Madison accompanied the patrician figure of Sir Richard Arcos through the little town of Lampeter. She removed her 'phone from her handbag, only to have it tell her 'no network'.

"Lampeter, my dear Lynette, is the land that time forgot," Sir Richard drawled languidly, "no mobile 'phones and what have-you. It's really rather relaxing. If this were all over, I think I'd have you and my dear daughter join me in a tea-room somewhere."

"You really care about her, don't you?" The classy blonde sighed deeply. "I guess you must feel a bit annoyed, the Greem Man not letting you know..."

"Not at all, my dear," the Squire smiled wistfully. "She'd 've kept it from me as well. She always wanted to keep me from being hurt. That's why she put on that mask in the first place, after all. But we're not here to discuss my rather strange daughter, but to discern some nasty baddies, while my daughter beats the truth out of someone. Now, where are we?"

"Lampeter High Street," Ms. Madison checked the nearest street sign, smiling impishly.

"I had suspected as much, lassie," Sir Richard smiled. "Shall we go to a tea room and partake of caffienated beverages while my daughter and your employer do all the hard work?

"You're insane!" Ms. Madison giggled. "However do your family put up with you?"

"That, at least, is easily explained," Sir Richard indicated to road that led up to the Anglican Church. "They look at the vast quantity of boodle that has attached itself to me over the course of my somewhat hectic life, and resolve to tolerate me so that they can get their dear old mitts on the stuff. Shall we toddle up to the church?"

"It's not Sunday yet," Ms. Madison shook her head, "and as far as I know, St. Peter's Church, Lampeter doesn't have any eccentricities."

"But it may have an elderly ecclesiastic who knows everything that's going on in this 'burg, old dear," Sir Richard placed his free hand on Ms. Madison's arm. "Rest your head on my shoulder, and everyone can think I'm a very bad man."

Ms. Madison giggled again, shaking her head.

"What are you like, Sir Richard?" she removed her arm from his grasp.

"No-one else on earth, my dear," Sir Richard smiled gently. "Which is why the bad guys really can't understand me. Here's one now, my dear..."

Ms. Madison saw a man with a gun step out of the shadows.