I’m starting a new series; just a short one. It’s to try and tempt people to buy my books basically. I’m giving you a snippet of one of my novels (7 in all) every week with the hope that it will inspire you to read the whole thing.
It’s a bit like when you go into a supermarket and there’s a lady in a white trilby hat at the end of an aisle offering you small cubes of cheese for you to sample in the hope that you’ll enjoy it so much you’ll buy the whole block. Hey, it seems to work for them.
Mutch Wants Moor is my 4th novel and the 2nd in the Ingleby series. The reason I’m doing this one first is that I’m currently working on the sequel to it and should you wish to read that one then you’ll need the back story of the main characters before you launch into it.
Here’s the back cover blurb to the book to give you some background:
Mutch Wants Moor is the hilarious new novel from the humorous pen of Alan Stevenson. Pierre Mutch wants more. More money that is. And one way of getting it is to rent out mooring space on his property by the Great Northern Canal. However, when Archie and Aggie Stone don’t turn out to be the ideal, traditional boaters that he had in mind he swiftly decides they must go and be replaced by more desirable and more affluent residents. Thus a highly comical sequence of devious plans are put into action by Pierre and one of his other tenants, the rakish old womaniser Basil Forbuoys, to rid Downing Wood Mill of the pesky newcomers. However, each new plan meets with increasingly disastrous laugh-out-loud results. Will Pierre eventually succeed in his dastardly plot? Read on…
So without further ado. Here is chapter 45 of the wonderfully funny Mutch Wants Moor…
Mutch Wants Moor - Chapter 45
The handle came away from the bucket with a loud snap just as he was about to grab it and he stepped aside hastily to avoid having the contents of it splash onto himself. But in his haste he stepped in the wrong direction, lost his footing and plunged, feet first, into the foulness of the sump with a startled yell.
Unfortunately for him, as he resurfaced from under the slurry and shouted for help, no one heard him. The sump door had swung shut for one thing and he was completely in the dark in five and a half feet of the most unimaginable shash. For another thing Sheila was making all sorts of noises, gibbering and wailing as she worked herself into a spiritual frenzy and for another Archie and Ellie had the DVD on so loud they would not have heard him if it had taken all night. There was nothing else for it, he’d have to get himself out of it. But before he did there was just the small matter of throwing up to be taken care of.
Once he’d fully emptied his stomach he wiped his mouth, realised that was a mistake due to the excrement on his sleeve and sought a way out of his predicament. Something bumped against his leg and he squealed in the darkness thinking it to be some foul and odious creature from the pit. He then realised that it was the pump.
The pump! That was it. He could climb up the chain and be free in a matter of seconds. It was such a simple solution he almost laughed with relief. He could get back home, chuck his clothes and shoes in the canal and get showered before anybody even knew what he’d been up to.
He seized the chain that was attached to the pump firmly in both hands and pressed one foot against the wall of the sump. This was it, he had to trust in his muscles to get him out. He lurched upwards and heaved on the chain at the same time with all his might, believing in its tensile, metallic strength to hold him.
The chain did not let him down. However, the hook that it was attached to on the ceiling of the pump house did. It was one thing for it to hold a heavy, industrial pump all these years but it was another to have a grown man hauling on it as well. The wooden joist it was screwed into yielded and the hook came away as if it had been inserted into warm butter and Pierre fell back into the stinking cess pit again, this time covering his head with his arms as the chain rattled and flailed down upon him.
He was now well and truly stuck. There was nothing else for it; he would have to scream at the top of his lungs for help and so he commenced to do just that.
‘Josiah are you there, are you there?’ Cried Sheila in a shrill and wavering voice that made Rita nervous. ‘Speak to us Josiah, speak to us, we beseech you.’
‘Load of old nonsense.’ Tutted Rita who was fast running out of patience.
‘Shush!’ Said Mary.
‘I could be at home watching Inspector Morse.’ Rita continued unperturbed.
‘Shush!’ Said Gilbert.
‘Speak to us Josiah, we’re here for you.’ Cried Sheila. ‘Here to help you.’
‘Not much bloody longer.’ Snorted Rita.
‘Shush!’ Said everybody except Sheila.
‘Please speak to us.’ Wailed Sheila. ‘Josiah Wainwright please speak to us.’
And then it came. A voice. Somehow distant and muffled but still audible. It said only two words - ‘Help me!’
There were gasps in the room and even crotchety old Rita suddenly felt rather cold as a shiver ran down her spine.
‘He’s here.’ Whispered Rita. ‘What do you want us to do Josiah?’
‘Help me, somebody please, I’m in it up to my neck.’ Came the voice in the semi darkness of the setting August sun.
‘Where are you?’ Asked Sheila.
‘Please somebody help me.’ Came the voice.
‘Josiah, please tell us where you are.’ Asked Sheila who by now was shaking so bad she looked like she was operating a road drill.
‘Help, I’m right in it.’ Came the voice.
‘Are you in the canal Josiah?’ Sheila said feeling thrilled to absolute bits. ‘Can’t you get out?’
‘Please, it stinks in here, I can’t stand it any longer.’ The voice said.
‘Downing Wood Mill used to be a tannery,’ said Mary in an awed tone, ‘all the waste used to get pumped into the canal and they say it could be smelled for miles. They called it the Downing Wood Reek at the time.’
‘How can we get you out Josiah?’ Said Sheila.
‘Help, bring a ladder.’ Said the voice. ‘Please!’ Josiah Wainwright sounded desperate.
‘A ladder?’ Said Sheila, a little confused. ‘Can you not swim Josiah? Did you never learn?’
‘Please, I think I’m going to die if I stay in here much longer.’ Said the voice.
‘Stay calm Josiah. We’re going to release you from this realm into the next.’
‘Help! I’m covered in fucking shit.’ Came the voice.
‘It was common for mill workers to use that kind of language.’ Said Mary. ‘And the canal would have been absolutely filthy.’
‘Mary, Mary please help me.’ The voice suddenly said and everyone in the room gasped and looked at Mrs Mutch.
‘It’s you he wants to talk to Mary.’ Said Sheila. ‘You must have the gift.’
‘What do I do?’ Asked Mary who was visibly trembling at this new turn of events.
‘Talk to him.’ Said Sheila. ‘Ask him how you can help.’
‘I’ll try.’ Said Mary who was still reeling from being contacted by a dead man from the eighteen hundreds. ‘What do you want from me Josiah?’ She said in a voice that was cracking with emotion.
‘Mary please, come and help me, I’m in the bloody sump.’
‘The sump?’ Said Mary and everybody looked at each other. ‘The sump wouldn’t have been there when Josiah Wainwright was alive. What’s he doing in the sump?’
‘Perhaps in the spirit realm the sump might have been where they laid his dead body after they pulled him out of the canal.’ Offered Rita who by now was feeling quite terrified.
‘Anything is possible in the spirit realm.’ Said Sheila. ‘Ask him Mary.’
And then quite literally everybody screamed as a loud and desperate knock came pounding on the door And Archie’s voice could be heard shouting ‘Aggie, Aggie come and help.’
Everybody in the séance, Rita included sprang from their chairs and went to the door, following Sheila. She opened it and there stood a rather worried looking Archie and a somewhat perplexed Ellie.
‘What is it? What’s the matter?’ Said a concerned Aggie pushing her way through the small crowd.
‘It’s Pierre.’ He said breathlessly, he’d been running and was unaccustomed to it.
‘Pierre?’ Said Mary. ‘What’s the daft bugger gone and done the noo?’ Her ancestral accent was coming to the fore once again.
‘He’s only gone and fell into the bleedin’ sump ain’t he.’ Said Archie.
Mary screamed, Rita gasped, George and Gilbert held hands, Bev and Aggie looked at each other and poor Sheila, she fainted on the spot and dropped to the floor. It had all been too much for her.
Mutch Wants Moor is available to buy HERE for £2.99 download or £8.99 paperback.
There will be another Baited Hook next week.