Sacrilege - Chapter 11

CHAPTER ELEVEN

“Well? I’m waiting.” I slammed my glass on the table and looked from one to the other.

“No one is keeping you in the dark, guv,” Danny protested. Me and Phil, we only arranged to meet an hour ago.”

“Oh, yes, and how did you manage that?”

“He called me on Ginny Sharp’s mobile phone,” said Philip, “but never mind that now. You say someone using my name told you to meet us here?”

“That doesn’t sound too good,” Danny groaned.

“Not if the Packards are behind it, it doesn’t,” Philip agreed. “It means my cover’s blown, for a start.”

“What were you doing with Ginny Sharp’s phone?” I glared at Danny.

“She lent it to me so I could call Jackie.”

“Jackie?” I was fast losing the plot.

“Ginny let me stay at her place, right? That was after some geezer put me out cold and meant to leave me for dead on Hampstead Heath. I was too scared to go back to your mum’s and I didn’t want to risk Grandma May’s either so I took a cab to Ginny’s place. She paid the fare and let me lie low for a bit.”

“Left you for dead on Hampstead Heath?”  I was incredulous.

“I think you had better start at the beginning, Danny,” Philip suggested.

“Yes, I think you’d better had.” I drained my glass. The others did the same. Philip went to the bar for more without even asking either of us if we were up for another. It went without saying.

“I went to get some crisps, right?” I nodded. Teresa had said as much. “On the way, this geezer pulls up in a flash car and asked me direction. I tell him I haven’t a clue because I don’t know the area. So then he gets out a map and wants me to show him, yeah?” I nodded, doubtfully. “I get into the car and try to work out where we are in relation to where he wants to go on the map. The next thing I know he’s grabbed me and holding a bleeding chloroform pad over my face!”

 I could only stare, appalled.

“The next thing I knew, I was lying on the ground in some bushes and the geezer was about to stick a knife into me. Kneeling beside me, he was, wearing some stupid Tony Blair mask and a dirty great blade in his hand about to send me to Kingdom Come.”

Danny paused then, “I tell you, guv, I was so shit scared I could hardly breathe. Then some birds flew by and he looked up. I saw my chance, sat up and made a grab for the knife. We struggled. I don’t know how because I was still feeling a bit groggy but somehow I managed to trip him up and he fell backwards into a bush.  I didn’t hang around. I just ran and kept running till I came to a road. I didn’t have a clue where I was. I’d lost the mobile. It was like I was up shit creek without a flaming paddle. Then a cab came along. I flagged it down yeah?  It stopped, but the cabbie took one look and would have driven off, I reckon, if I hadn’t turned on the waterworks.  I told him I’d been mugged, but if he’d take me home someone would pay my fare.  For all I knew, it was all down to the Packards so I asked him to drive me to Ginny’s place. Lucky for me, he was a good bloke and did just that.

“He drove you all the way from Reading with no guarantee he’d get paid?” I was impressed.

Danny shrugged. “Restores your faith in human nature, doesn’t it?”

Philip returned with the drinks.

“Yes, well, you can push your luck just so far, yeah?” Danny continued. “Ginny was out. The cabbie was none too pleased I can tell you, but I persuaded him to head for that dive where she works. Lucky for both of us, she came up with the goodies. I knew she would. Not only that, she let me stay at her flat. You should see it, guv, it’s in South Kensington and real posh. Don’t be mad with Phil,” he added ruefully. “It was Jackie I came to meet, not him.”

“Jackie told me so here I am,” said Philip in a tone that said, end of conversation, but I was having none of it.

“So how come you spoke to Jackie? Why didn’t you call me? I’ve been worried sick.”

“Because I told him the fewer people who knew for the moment, the better,” said Philip meeting my accusing glare with a defensive expression. “I needed time to think this through, for heaven’s sake. Even you can see that, Laurence, surely?”

I did not trust myself to speak.

Danny took another swig of beer before continuing.  “Ginny wasn’t too pleased to see me, I can tell you. After she paid off the cabbie, we were having a bit of a ding dong. Then Jackie turns up, shouting the odds and demanding to know what Ginny thinks she’s was playing at.  I was hiding under the table so I caught the full blast. In the middle of it all, in marches Phil here, also shooting from the hip and demanding to know where yours truly is hanging out.” His serious expression broke into a wide grin. “Three people arguing over me, it was great!”

“Until you sneezed and gave the game away,” murmured Philip.

“Yeah, well, that floor’s more dust than carpet if you ask me.”

“So you revealed yourself and devil take the hindmost, is that it?” I felt my lips twitch but swallowed the chuckle threatening to betray me.

“Sort of…” Danny agreed, “But it was Jackie, not the devil, who persuaded Ginny to part with the keys to the flat.

“In spite of Philip shouting the odds?” I was puzzled, “For all she knew, he was doing Vince Packard’s dirty work for him.”

Danny shrugged.

“I managed to convince her that I had Danny’s best interest at heart,” Philip said a little too quickly for my liking.

I grasped the nettle. “In other words she knows who you are.” Philip nodded. It was Danny’s turn to go to the bar although not after I had given him a ten pound note from my wallet.

I confronted Philip. “What is it with you? Do you get a kick out of playing with fire…or what?”

“Or what…I guess,” said Philip but saw I was in no mood for levity. “Ginny Sharp may not be everyone’s cup of tea but Danny’s right, she’s no grass. Besides, she’s the least of our worries don’t you think?”

“Given that our lives seem to be hanging on a thread from Ginny Sharp’s knickers, I’m not so sure,” I spluttered. “You can’t honestly mean you trust her, surely?”

“Where Danny is concerned, yes I do. She knows we’re on Danny’s side so that makes us allies in her book.”

“Maybe,” I conceded doubtfully.

“What worries me more at the moment is who used my name to bring you here? When Danny told me about your stalker, I took it no more seriously than he did. Now we need to think again. If he’s working for the Packards, we’re in big trouble. Yet somehow I don’t think so. Yes, they’re dangerous and like to play silly beggars but they also like their victims to know who’s pulling the strings.”

Danny returned with the drinks. “I don’t think the Packards and our stalker are out of the same stable,” he said and sat down.  Philip and I regarded him with a mixture of affection and expectation. “But I do think the stalker and the geezer who tried to kill me are one and the same.”

“But I’m the one he’s threatening, not you,” I pointed out. Philip nodded in agreement.

“When I came to, it’s like I said, he was ready to stick the knife in. The more I think about it, though, the less sure I am he would have killed me. Oh, he’d have cut me bad, no doubt about that, but I reckon he may have stopped short of finishing me off.”

“As a warning to me, do you mean?” I felt my blood run cold.

“It figures,” Philip growled.

“What do you mean? What figures?” Had I missed something, I wondered?

Philip tuned to Danny. “You said he was wearing a mask, right?” Danny nodded.

“Ignore me then, see if I care!” I spluttered.

 Philip went on, “That can only mean he didn’t want you to see his face and if you were dead, it wouldn’t matter.”

“That’s how I see it. Besides…” Danny had dropped his voice to a whisper and was staring miserably at the table.

“Come on, Danny, what is it you’re not telling us?” Philip growled.

Danny took several deep breaths then,  “Before I opened my eyes, I could hear  someone muttering and although I hadn’t a clue what was going on, I thought I heard something that made me realize I needed to get away from there fast.  If I hadn’t …well, who knows? You have to remember I was groggy and disoriented. But you know how it is? Some things can scare the living daylights out of you in such a way you’d gladly walk on hot coals if that’s what it takes to feel safe again.”

“Shit!”  Philip took an extra long swig of beer.

“What?” I looked from one to the other in consternation. Suddenly, the penny dropped although even then I was loath say the two words that hung over us like the sword of Damocles.

It was left to Philip to put a name to my worst fears, “Fat Georgie”.

Danny barely moved his head by way of confirmation.

No one spoke as we digested the implications of Danny’s words.  Fat Georgie was a pimp of the worst kind. The blood on his hands included that of Danny’s girlfriend Poppy who had shared his life on the streets of London and was only fifteen years-old at the time she was raped and murdered by Georgie. He was now serving several life sentences in one of the country’s most secure prisons. All three of us had, in one way or another, contributed to his conviction. So why pick on me, I kept asking myself?

“Where is Jackie now?” I asked rather than confront my ghosts head-on.

“She’s gone back to Reading. I got the impression she’ll be bringing Marc back with her,” said Philip.

“Marc would be much safer staying put if you ask me,” Danny remarked over the rim of his glass. “Jackie might have waited to give me a lift though. I can’t wait to get back to Terri. We’ve got big plans, Terri and me.”  I glared at Philip who glared back, an exchange of warning glances that did not pass Danny by. “What?” he demanded.

“You should have told him,” I reproached Philip.

“Tell me what? Will someone tell me what’s going on please?” Danny banged his fist on the table.

“Oh, and that would have helped, would it?” Philip ignored the interruption and fixed me with an icy stare that made me wonder if we could ever bridge the gulf that separated us.

I turned to Danny, who was on his feet now and looking as angry as I was feeling towards Philip and, if I was honest, with myself as well. I told him how Vince Packard had been waiting for Jackie and me at the widow’s house. “That’s all I know. I’m sorry, Danny.”

Danny sat down, his devastated expression pitiful to see. He looked so vulnerable. I wanted to go and give him a hug but knew better. When he spoke there was a note of defeat in his voice I’d never heard before. “So what you’re saying is that Terri’s back with those damn Packards and we’re back at square one?”

“That’s about it,” Philip agreed.

“Not exactly…” I began. Two pairs of eyes homed in on me. I looked at Philip, hoping for a helping hand but he refused to look at me. I swallowed nervously. “It’s like this, Danny.  Vince Packard is still expecting us all to get together. That’s you, me, him and Teresa. He’s not about to let us off the hook, I’m afraid.”

“Do we know when and where?”

I retrieved the card Packard had given me from my shirt pocket and handed it to Danny. “I imagine that’s where.”

“So…when?”

“He said he’ll be in touch.”I groaned.

“Yes!” Danny’s face lit up. “Don’t you see? When at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.”

“You are joking?” I couldn’t believe my ears. “Packard will keep us on a leash so tight we’ll be seeing stars!  If we had a grain of commonsense between us we’d…”

“Emigrate,” declared Philip. No one contradicted him.

“We can’t leave Terri in the lurch,” Danny insisted.

“You guys have no idea what you’re up against,” Philip observed but without conviction. “We’d be mad to try again.”

“We..?” Danny pricked up his ears. “You’re up for it then?”

“Aren’t we forgetting something?” I reminded them, “Apart from mission impossible, there’s still the matter of Fat Georgie’s errand boy on the loose.”

“We don’t know that for sure,” Philip pointed out.

“Maybe he’s the serial killer?” Danny suggested.

“Like you’re Job’s comforter,” I muttered.

“Who’s he?” Danny wanted to know.

“Forget it,” I told him

Philip gave Danny a long, old-fashioned look that usually meant he had come to a decision he was none too happy about. “I don’t suppose your friend with the knife happened to stick a pink carnation in your mouth, did he?”

“You’re joking, yeah?”

“I thought not. That little ritual is part of our serial killer’s MO… and it goes no further than this table,” he added warningly. “We have to keep some things from the press,” he sighed, “or we’d have no way of telling the hundreds of hoax callers eager confess and make a name for themselves from the genuine article.”

“Bloody hell, Phil, how creepy can you get?” was Danny’s verdict that just about summed up mine too.

“You don’t know the half of it,” said Philip, “He has sex with his victims.”

“You mean he rapes them?” I was shocked. Philip shook his head. “But you said…”

“I said he has sex with them.”

“So it’s consensual. Then he…that’s horrible.”

“Not a bad way to go though,” observed Danny in poor taste.

“He has sex with them afterwards, not before,” said Philip quietly.

“Bloody hell…!” Danny spoke for both of us. I felt more than faintly sick.

“That goes no further than this room, understand?”

Danny and I could only nod, speechless with horror and disgust at what we had just been told. 

“What makes you think there’s a connection between Mister Carnation and the Packards?” I was not only curious to know but also anxious to shift the conversation away from morbid details. “I know they’re a bunch of thugs but there’s a world of difference between organized crime and dealing in drugs,  people smuggling, whatever…and a harbouring a twisted psychopath.  They can’t run the risk of letting some loose cannon queer their pitch, surely?”

“Trust me, there’s a connection. I have an idea what it is, I just don’t know for sure…yet.” He paused as if uncertain whether to take us into his confidence. “Ralph Packard owns a bar in Camden Town called The Red Admiral. It’s managed by his other son, Miles. All the killer’s victims have been regulars at the Admiral. Yes, yes, I know it’s circumstantial but it’s all I have to go on so far.” He turned to Danny. “I don’t suppose you could take me back to where chummy took you?”

Danny shook his head. “I haven’t a clue.”

“We might find some DNA on your clothes, I suppose. You haven’t chucked them in the washing machine?” Danny’s expression was so pained it was comic and I was hard put not to laugh. “Oh, you haven’t?”

“I’m afraid so. Well what was I supposed to do, walk around in dirty gear?”

“You could have used that thing you have the nerve to call a brain,” Philip groaned.

“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that,” Danny’s quipped but his tone struck me as more hurt than peeved.

 “Leave him alone,” I cried in harsh whisper. “You’re trained up for that sort of thing. Danny isn’t, any more than I am.  As for that thing you have the nerve to call a brain, no one apart from a copper or a criminal would want an inflated ego half that size.”

“Hey, steady on,” Danny interjected but we ignored him.

“I’m bloody good at my job.”

“So you should be, you’ve been married to it for long enough.” I saw at once that I’d gone too far.

“Is that what you really think?”

“It’s my round, I think.” I got up and went to the bar.

“I don’t know what’s got into him but that’s a guilty conscience talking if ever there was,” Philip confided to Danny. I couldn’t be sure he realized I was still within earshot and silently prayed Danny would resist voicing an opinion of his own on the subject of my conscience. I’d had more than I could take for one day.

“Yes sir?” 

I gave my order, thinking perversely how everything about the young barman, from his red hair to his cute bum and the graceful but in no way effeminate manner he moved, reminded me of Ryan Banks.

As I returned to the table, someone yelled, “There’s been another murder!”

Since we were sitting in a gay bar, it was a fair assumption that the speaker was referring to the serial killer. I glared at Philip. “Shouldn’t you be getting back to work?”

Philip got to his feet. “Keep an eye on him, Danny, will you? I’d tell the pair of you to stay out of trouble but I won’t waste my breath.” His eyes, unnaturally bright, flung daggers at me, “and that goes double for you.”

He left without another word. His footsteps racing up the stairs felt like hobnail boots tramping all over my heart. Philip could be so cruel sometimes.

“Scary, isn’t it. Bloody hell, suppose your stalker and the serial killer are one and the same…”

“Come off it, Danny, you can do better than that. As far as we know, my stalker is only interested in me. Well, you too it would seem.  Philip was right about that. If you heard correctly, Fat Georgie has to be behind your recent experience. Cat playing with mice is right up our Georgie’s street, wouldn’t you say?  It’s not as if we don’t have crap enough on our plates already!”

“If I heard right…” Danny mused aloud.

I pretended not to hear.  Life was complicated enough without Danny speculating about how worse it might get.

“You do realize we’ll have to play along with Packard if only to buy some time?” Danny’s was saying.

“Play along?” I echoed in horror, “Over my dead body, we will. Apart from the fact that I have no intention of performing gross sexual antics for Packard or anyone else, I shouldn’t have to remind you that time is not on our side.  If you’re right and my stalker is working for Fat Georgie through some third party, there’s a good chance the Packard’s don’t know about it…yet. But you know as well as I do how fast news travels among the criminal fraternity. If and when anyone makes the connection between us and Fat Georgie, not only are you and me candidates for bin bags in the canal but Philip’s cover will be blown sky high. That’s assuming no one has made the connection already,” I added for good measure.

If I’d hoped to frighten Danny into seeing sense, I suspected I’d only succeeded in scaring myself more.

I met his mildly amused gaze with what I hoped was a look that showed I meant business. “No, my lad, we don’t have any time to buy even if someone were selling. So you had better get that devious little mind of yours working overtime and come up with something resembling a plan that will work or you and I will be on the next train to Manchester!”

I stormed off to the toilet

By the time I returned, Danny had gone. “Typical!” I muttered, feverishly fumbling with my mobile phone and praying Ryan Banks would pick up.  He didn’t. It hardly mattered since my body would not take ‘no’ for an answer.  Consequently, I took the District Line to Bow without thinking through what I would do if Ryan was out when I arrived. All I knew was that I needed to be held and loved.  Events were taking over at a pace with which I couldn’t be expected to keep up…could I?

The train was delayed due to a signal failure at Mile End. By the time I arrived at Bow Road station, it was nearly midnight.

Needless to say, there was no sign of Ryan. The flat was in pitch darkness and I was soon close to tears.

The lifts were out of order. Having walked up and down seven flights of steps, I was feeling tired, irritable and not a little sorry for myself. My mobile phone rang. I grabbed it from my pocket but did not recognize the number. Every instinct told me to switch it off. “Hello,” I mumbled.

It was the stalker. “Hello Mister Dead Man Walking, how are you? Tired, I imagine. What are you doing in Bow at this time of night? I’d get back on the main road if I were you. These estates, there are so many dark corners where anything might happen.”  The phone went dead. I leaned against a wall for support. How had he known where I was?  Was he watching me even now? I looked anxiously around.

A cat uttered a piercing meow. I panicked and ran.

By the time I reached the tube station, it was already closed. I ran on towards Mile End. A car slowed just ahead. As I drew level with it, a voice called out, “Mister Fisher, Mister Fisher…” 

I ran all the faster in spite of the beginnings of stomach cramp.  All I could think of was that I must get away from the stalker.

“Mister Fisher, Mister Fisher…” the voice kept calling and it was a while before my mind registered that it was a female voice.

I staggered to a halt.

“You might as well get in, Fisher, before you have a heart attack or something.”

I recognized the voice. It belonged to Ginny Sharp. The car stopped.

“What are you doing here?” I panted.

“If I knew what was good for me I’d be minding my own business. As it is, Danny told me to look out for you. I’m on my way to my sister Heather’s place. You might as well come along for the ride as drop dead where you’re standing…if standing’s the right word,” she sniggered. “You really should be more careful at your age. Haring along like that…it could bring on a heart attack.”

“I’ll have you know I am still in my prime,” I gasped, “and perfectly alright thank you.”

“I must say I’d never have guessed”

It was true, I could barely stand and my cramp was worsening.  I clambered into the passenger seat, paused and regarded the young woman I had no reason to trust with frank suspicion. “What do you mean, Danny told you to look out for me? He has no idea where I am.”

“You know Danny. Not a lot gets past him. He reckoned you’d be making for the new boyfriend.”

“But…” I saw no point in arguing. She was right about one thing. Not a lot got past Danny.

At the block where Heather lived, Ginny took her leave. “It’s number seventeen. You can find your own way from here. Me, I’ve got business.”

“It’s past midnight,” I pointed out.

“That’s right, rush hour. See you.”  She drove away.

Heather was expecting me and seemed neither pleased nor unduly bothered about being disturbed in the middle of the night. She was wearing a silk dressing gown with a flowery design and looked years younger with her hair hanging down to her waist. Her first task after helping me into a chair was to provide two glasses of brandy.

“You’re very kind,” I mumbled. The brandy went down a treat.

“Don’t mention it. I’d do the same for a stray cat.” She poured some more brandy into my glass.

“Your sister is a strange woman. I don’t think she likes me very much yet she seemed genuinely concerned for me.”

“She didn’t do it out of the kindness of her heart if that’s what you’re thinking. Danny can wind her round his little finger. He always could and probably always will. If he told her to jump of a cliff she’d probably give it some thought before telling him to go first. He was good to Poppy, you see. She was a good kid, Poppy. She deserved better. Ginny was devastated when that bastard Fat Georgie killed her. We all were.”

“There but for the grace of God?” I suggested

“I wouldn’t go that far. I don’t think God has ever featured much in our Ginny’s life. But, yes, something along those lines I dare say.” I had the impression she was going to add something but changed her mind. “I’m off to bed. Pull out the sofa and you’ll find pillows and blankets under the seat. Sleep well.” She went into another room and shut the door.

The sofa bed was easy to make up and I was soon lying in the dark feeling too tired to sleep.

My conversation with Heather about Poppy played on my mind, not least because it looked as though Fat Georgie wasn’t finished with Danny and me just yet. How had he found out and who was he paying to…do just what, I wondered?

I don’t recall falling asleep but I did.

It was nearly 10.00 am before I woke. Heather had left me a note, inviting me to help myself to some breakfast and make sure I left no taps running and the flat door firmly closed when I left. I discovered I was ravenous and took her at her word. After a full fry-up and several cups of coffee, I called Danny on the widow Finn’s land line.

“Marc and Jackie are back,” he told me, “and they’ve moved back into Marc’s place. Oh, and Thomas is over the worst. They’ve taken him out of Intensive Care and put him in a ward.”

“Thank God for that.” I breathed a sigh of relief. “Has there been any word from Vince Packard?” I forced myself to ask.

“You should be so lucky. He’ll keep us in suspense a while yet, you can bet on it.”

“Have you come up with any bright ideas?”

“Not yet, but I’m working on it. Oh, and the widow wants to know if you’ll be in for lunch.”

“It depends,” I hedged.

“On what, the boyfriend…?” Danny’s tone was nothing short of contemptuous,

“Maybe,” I replied in the same vein and switched off my phone rather than give him the satisfaction of hanging up on me.

I called Ryan.

“Laurence, where have you been? I’ve been worried about you.”

“I tried to call you,” I said more tersely than I intended.

“I mislaid the damn phone didn’t I?  So where are you now?” I told him. “Great, you’re practically next door. Come round and we can…well, whatever takes your fancy.”

“It’s barely 11 o’clock!” I laughed.

“So? You know what they say, a little bit of what your fancy does you good and I don’t recall anything about the time of day do you?”

“No,” I agreed laughing and felt better already.

When Ryan opened the door to me about forty minutes later, I was in a buoyant mood but one look at his face wiped the smile off mine. He had a very nasty black eye and wore a plaster on his cheek. He grinned at my expression and gave me a hug before dragging me inside. “It looks much worse than it is,” he assured me.

“What happened?”

“Someone tried to mug me yesterday evening. I scared him off but we had a bit of a ding-dong and think I may have been concussed because I don’t remember how got home.”

“How awful, you poor love!” I was shocked.  We hugged and I could already feel his sex demanding attention.

We went to bed, stayed there and he fell asleep after an explosive performance. For a while I was content to lie there, his head on my chest, listening to the regular rhythm of his breathing and wondering if I was in love with Ryan Banks or simply using him as a convenient stand-in for Philip. There was no doubt in my mind that it’s what Danny thought, probably the widow Finn too. “No, I’m not,” I protested to my nagging alter ego. So where did that leave me. Could it be I was in love with Ryan? “But I love Philip,” I started to argue but settled for running my fingers through Ryan’s hair and leaning forward to kiss his cheek.  He did not stir but smiled in his sleep. I thought I had never seen anyone so beautiful.

It wasn’t until we were preparing to leave a few hours later that he told me he had an appointment with Packard senior. “Ralph’s okay. He’s mean but he’s a shrewd businessman if ever there was. His little empire is worth a good few million, I can tell you. Come with me if you want,” he added, “Ralph won’t mind. You can have a drink at the bar and even grab a snack if you want while I take a look at the club’s books.”

“Club…?”

“The Red Admiral in Camden, do you know it?”

“Only by reputation,” I said.

“Well, now is your chance to see for yourself. It’s pretty dead during the day, of course, but there’s a conference room Ralph hires out and there’s usually something going on. “

“Not a good idea,” I said.

“Why?”

“I’m not in the Packard’s good books,” I told him, “They seem to think I had something to do with starting the fire.”

“And did you?” It was a fair question but left me nonplussed. “You didn’t start that fire, did you?” he repeated.

“Of course not,” I lied, “But they’ve got it in for a friend of mine for some reason and I seem to have landed in his mess.”

“That would be Danny, yeah?” I nodded. He shrugged. “What the heck? Show the Packards you’re not afraid of them, and you can take it from me they’ll treat you with more respect.”

“But I am afraid of them,” I admitted.

“That’s all the more reason to make out you’re not, surely?” argued Ryan with a wicked wink that make my heart skip a beat.  “Now, get you’re coat and don’t look so worried. I won’t let Ralph Packard or his dickhead sons lay a finger on you.”

Feeling only marginally reassured, I let him talk me into it. We made our way by Tube to Camden Town station and from there to The Red Admiral where it had stood for half a century about ten minutes’ walk away.

In vain, I tried to shrug off a bad feeling grumbling away in my bowels. 

To be continued on Friday

[Note: For more about the author: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber + You Tube (poetry) channel: http://www.youtube.com/rogerNtaber ]