Terry Jones: Trouble on the Heath

“You do!” cried Midge’s owner. “Well isn’t that a coincidence?”

“Not really. We live next door to each other. It would be difficult not to know her.”

“No, I mean isn’t it a coincidence that you should live next door to my aunt?”

“But we’ve been neighbours for years so it isn’t really a…”

“Perhaps we should get on with the photograph?” suggested Malcolm, exercising his authority as chairman.

“Are you taking a photograph?” asked Martha from New Zealand.

“Well… er… isn’t that what you’ve come for?” replied Malcolm.

“Absolutely!” said Martha. “I’m going to take lots of photos. I specialise in vegetarian close-ups.”

“What are they?” put in Midge’s owner.

“Let’s just get on with it, shall we?” suggested Malcolm.

“Is this all there are?” said another voice. It belonged to a tall man in a raincoat with greased-down hair. In fact he was the newspaper’s photographer. “Not much of a protest, is it?”

“I’ve got to get home,” said Mr Kendrick.

“Please! Please! Please stay!” cried Malcolm holding on to Mr Kendrick’s sleeve. Nigel started barking at this. “Shut up! Nigel!”

“I mean, how many are there of you?”

“Five!” said Malcolm. “That’s quite enough.”

“Well it’s not going to get on the front page,” said the photographer.

“I’ve got things to do at home,” complained Mr Kendrick.

“Please stay!” whimpered Malcolm. “Just one minute!”

“All right,” said the photographer. “Try to look angry.” He pulled a small Sony digital camera from his pocket.

“Is that all you’re using?” said Malcolm.

“It’ll do for this,” said the photographer. “There! Done it!”

“We weren’t posed!” exclaimed Malcolm.

“And you’ve got to get the site of the proposed development in the shot!” said Patrick. “It’s behind you.”

“Can Midge be in the shot?” asked Midge’s owner.

“Yes of course! The more the merrier. Come on, Nigel!” said Malcolm.

“Wave your fists in the air!” said the photographer. “Like the girl in the bomber jacket’s doing.”

“What are we protesting about?” asked Martha from New Zealand.

“Got it!” said the photographer, who slipped his camera back into his pocket and wandered off.

“Don’t you want our names?” Malcolm shouted after him.

That lunchtime, as Malcolm was telling the story of the disastrous protest rally and photo-shoot, the phone rang. Their six-year-old, Freddie, was the first one there. He listened and then put the phone back on the receiver.

“Who was it?” asked Angela.

“Don’t know,” said Freddie.

“What did they say?” asked Malcolm.

“Stop, or your kid gets it,” said Freddie.

Anton Molotov hated this sort of job. For a start he wasn’t very good at them. The truth is he’d always intended to be a concert pianist rather than a gangster.

Becoming a gangster had all started as a holiday job. That nice Mr Grigori Koslov had offered him three weeks’ temporary work as a night-watchman. Anton Molotov had just started studying music at the St Petersburg State Conservatory.

The long vacation ran from the end of June to the beginning of September. When he found, at the end of the three weeks, that nobody said anything about leaving his holiday job, he stayed on. He was, after all, earning what seemed at the time like a fortune.

It was only in September, when he wanted to go back to the Conservatory, that he found things weren’t so simple. He was told that he had to stay on as night-watchman. When he enquired why, he was told that it was because he’d seen all the stuff coming in and going out.

Now, Anton had indeed seen all the stuff going in and out of the warehouse, but he hadn’t a clue what the ‘stuff’ was, and, being at the time more interested in music, he hadn’t bothered to find out.

On 1st September he did indeed return to the Conservatory, and didn’t report for night-watchman duty that night. The next day, two men came into the classroom and hauled him out, despite the protests of the teacher, and he was never allowed to go back.

“I cannot allow you, Anton Molotov, to wander around, talking to anybody you choose about what you’ve seen! You, who have been a witness to all our secrets!” That’s what that nice Mr Grigori Koslov had said to him. Anton wanted to point out that he didn’t know a thing about Grigori Koslov’s secrets, but he replied, “But I want to be a concert pianist! I want to study at the Conservatory!”

“I like you, Anton Molotov,” Grigori Koslov had said. “I will make sure you complete your studies.”

A few nights later, when Anton was on guard in the warehouse as usual, a truck drove into the unloading bay and two men threw out a rolled-up carpet. The carpet contained none other than Vadim Volkov, who was Anton’s teacher. It was he who had done all the protesting when Anton had been taken out of class.

Vadim Volkov, however, refused to speak to Anton, and sat sulking in a corner of the warehouse. Perhaps he blamed Anton for his current situation.

The next night, a lorry drove into the unloading bay. Several men in black balaclava helmets opened the back and hauled out a grand piano.

Vadim Volkov still refused to speak to Anton, but he sat at the keyboard and played for hours on end, ignoring his former pupil.

Some weeks later, when Grigori Koslov asked Anton how his studies were going, Anton explained how the teacher refused to speak to him.

The next night, Anton turned up at the warehouse to find Vadim Volkov seated, as usual, at the piano, but this time his head was missing.

From that moment Anton knew his fate was sealed. He was going to be a gangster. So he accepted his fate, because, after all, the money was pretty good. For the next few years, Anton focussed all his efforts on keeping in Grigori Koslov’s good books.

And that was how Anton came to be sitting in a car in a street in north London, England, instead of on stage at the Philharmonic Hall, St Petersburg.

In his pocket was a photo of some kid and its mother. His task was to grab the kid but not the mother. That was by no means an easy job. In his experience mothers could play up pretty rough, when you tried to grab their kids. It always surprised him how violent a mother can get.

Anton remembered one bungled job, where the mother had pulled a Walther P99 semiautomatic pistol on him. He had nearly had an accident which would have meant changing his underwear, because he knew any mother who carried a Walther P99 wouldn’t hesitate to fire it, if he tried to grab her kid. Still, that was back in Russia. That was the sort of thing one had come to expect these days. The fall of Communism had brought violence and organised crime, of which, of course, he realised he was part. Armed mothers were nothing new in Russia.

But this was England. People, especially mothers, didn’t normally carry semi-automatic pistols around with them. This should be easy – or easier.

Anton sat for some hours, wondering what sort of supper he would get when he’d finished the job. He had just settled on going for a Tex Mex, because there weren’t too many of them in Moscow, when he suddenly saw them. The mother was holding the boy’s hand, as mothers do, and the boy was jumping around like he was on a pogo stick.

Anton waited until they got nearer the car. Then he calmly and deliberately stepped out of the car and walked quietly up to the woman, produced a can of Mace pepper spray from his pocket and gave her a quick squirt in the face. He then grabbed the boy’s hand and whisked him into the car, while the mother fell to the floor gasping for breath.