7
As Slim sat across a rickety table from the old man who had introduced himself as Lester ‘but call me Les’ Coates, he found himself constantly thinking about the clock he had casually left on his bed in the guesthouse. It might be worth a small fortune, something that, in the absence of any upcoming work, would be handy right now.
‘The stories, they went on and on,’ Les said over tea that Slim found frustratingly weak. ‘It was literally a case of here today, gone tomorrow. Everything from falling down a mine shaft on Bodmin Moor to a k********g by an international terrorist group. Quite fanciful, you might say.’
‘He lived near here?’
‘At Worth Farm. Head north from mine, the second entrance on the left. He had hands who worked the farm for him, but it was a minimal operation. People
