Am I Being Followed?

by G. M. Hutchison

  His features wore that faintly amused expression that had impressed me so much when I first met him. I always warmed to it. When it faded there seemed to be something quite different, formidable and unrelenting, lying just underneath the surface. To be trusted by someone like him meant a lot to me.

  “I shouldn’t really be telling you this, John,” he went on. “But the people I work for are taking over the Casino. That’s mainly why I’m up here.”

  “And where do fire extinguishers fit into all this?” I asked him, hungry for more information. “What have Bartons got to do with it?”

  Andy laughed. “Fair question, John. The answer is, well, not all that much. I learnt about extinguishers in the army.”

  “They’re just a cover?”

  “In this business everything has to be very low profile, John, and with the Casino about to become a part of it, it’s got to be even more so. There’s a lot of brains on both sides of the law these days and we’ve got to go about things in a different way. That’s where people like you fit in.”

  “Like me?”

  “You can be trusted, John, and you’ve got your head screwed on,” he said, patting me on the back.

  “And you even look educated,” he added, smiling, and patting me even harder. “You’re just what we’re looking for.”

  “A respectable front, you mean,” I commented, trying to sound worldly wise.

  “I know men, John. We’ve got to have the right kind of people working for us these days and we’re willing to pay good money to get them.”

  How right I had been about him all along was now plainly obvious. He didn’t belong in Bartons. Andy was much more than this. Although he had scruples of a certain kind, of course he had, it was obvious he wouldn’t be tied down, like I was, by principles and beliefs that always had to be taken into account before anything could get done. But he would look out for his friends. Big Tom, for example, hung on his every word. It was just that, with Andy, I could see how the quickest way of dealing with something would always take priority over the rights and wrongs of it. A problem would be an obstacle that had to be overcome at once, rather than an issue that had to be considered. I wondered where he would fit into the Pastor’s scheme of things. There had to be a place for people like him there somewhere, surely.

  In admiring him in this way, and going back on my decision to give this work up, was I beginning to think like a criminal again? Surely not. Didn’t many otherwise Godly men get into a similar position when they were engaged in what they thought was a just war, uttering up prayers for the success of their mission as they mowed down the enemy. Although the Pastor’s world view might ultimately be the right one didn’t many of the acts committed by good men sometimes chip it a little along the edges? Apparently not all saints felt they could or should be conscientious objectors. Some wars just had to be fought. Maybe I could use this as an excuse, too, for wasn’t I at war? If I couldn’t get money to pay my debts then I would go under. Should the main issue really be that what I was doing for Andy was against the law or, like the dropping of the atom bomb was said to have been, wasn’t the end more important than the means?

  The money I was being paid by Andy meant I could hold on to the flat and that Grace could remain safely in the Home, and that I didn’t have to throw up my hands in despair, not just yet. The Pastor’s elevated world view could surely be adjusted to accommodate this. I wasn’t going against all that he stood for, it was the circumstances that were all wrong. Sitting in the pew was one thing, standing with your back to the wall was another.

  In my plight Andy and his friends had been light out of the darkness. They had accepted me, treated me as if I was one of them. All of them in different ways seemed to have strong blood running through their veins and for the short time I had known them I had begun to feel that I had too. Their strength had rubbed off on me, and kept me going.

  Making these deliveries was wrong and I was right in worrying about what it might lead to. But wasn’t hoisting the white flag wrong too. Where else was I going to get the money I needed to survive? Could I afford to have a world view that didn’t take things like this into account?

  The delivery was important to Andy and, for that reason, it was important to me, too. Andy didn’t let you down and I wasn’t going to let him down either. He needed me for this delivery, and I was going to do it for this reason and not because I was desperate for the money. It was as simple as that.

  *

  BUT I HAD LEFT ANDY DOWN AFTER ALL, SITTING THERE IN THE LAY-BY DRINKING TEA, ALLOWING THE SMILING MAN TO CREEP UP ON ME. WHERE WAS I IN THE BOOK COLLECTION NOW? WHICH OF THE GREAT ERRORS THAT WERE SO WELL DOCUMENTED THERE HAD I COMMITTED THAT COULD BRING ME FULL CIRCLE TO YET ANOTHER ABJECT FAILURE? HAD I BEEN CARELESS, WRONG-HEADED, ARROGANT, IGNORANT OR WAS I JUST A VICTIM OF BAD LUCK OR HUMAN FRAILTY?

  In spite of all this, and what Andy had said might happen, I gradually began to feel a bit better. Sitting here in the car with Karen, heading out to confront Steve and the smiling man, two professional criminals, with a gun in my pocket, and my life expectancy considerably reduced, didn’t seem all that bad. At least I was doing the very best I could. Since leaving the Food Importers I had always seemed to be on the wrong end of things and filled with self-deprecating introspection. It couldn’t be that way now. There wasn’t time. I had lost the Package and, at all costs, I was going to get it back.

  I definitely couldn’t afford to sit here in my usual way wishing I could put the clock back. In the real world the clock only went forward and I had to get on top of these events before I was overcome by them.

  Whether I liked it or not, I wasn’t a salesman in this world, or an amateur theologian. I was a criminal, and I had to be prepared to act like one if I was to have any chance of success.

  “We’re almost there,” Karen said. “It’s just round the corner.”

  I pulled over and turned to face her.

  “You’re not going into the caravan park, Karen,” I told her.

  “I thought that’s what I was here for?” she replied indignantly. “It’s a big park. Do you think you’ll find these people by just wandering about?”

  Regardless of her attitude, however, I still felt responsible for her safety. I couldn’t bear the thought of anything happening to her. She might belong to Andy, but right now it was me who was the man in her life, even if it wouldn’t be for long.

  “Well come as far as you have to, point out to me which caravan it is, then come right back to the car,” I told her brusquely.

  “You’re really quite at home with all this, aren’t you,” she said, with the glimmer of a smile on her lips. “Barking out orders and carrying a gun.”

  She looked composed and her voice was strong and clear.

  “Are you absolutely sure we’re going about this the right way?” she asked.

  That she could still be weighing up the options at this late stage astounded me and it seemed best, therefore, that it was me who was taking the initiative, as she had suggested, and not her. Although she was one of Andy’s group of friends I was involved in all this much more than she was. It was the first ladder I had gone up for a long time.

  “You’re not suggesting that we just walk away, are you?” I countered.

  “Well, we could, couldn’t we?”

  “And forget about Andy?”

  “It’s Andy’s business, John. He didn’t ask you to do this,” she reasoned.

  “I’m not going to walk out on him, Karen.”

  “What happened wasn’t your fault,” she insisted. “You definitely don’t belong in this kind of thing. Or do you. Am I missing something?” she asked irritably.

  I was no stronger to not belonging. I didn’t belong in Bartons sales office. My heart wasn’t in it. I was a mere guest in what had once been my grandfather’s house and I didn’t really belong there either. And
no matter how singularly impressed I had been by their beliefs I didn’t belong in the Church in the way that the Pastor and Linda did.

  “I practically gave the package away, Karen.”

  “He took the package off you at gun point, John.”

  “I should have seen him coming.”

  “He would have got it off you in some other way, somewhere else,” she argued, sounding exasperated.

  “Karen, it’s you who doesn’t have to do this, not me.”

  “Well we’d better walk the rest of the way,” she said, ignoring my comment.

  “Walk?”

  “We can’t just drive in through the front gate, can we?” she said impatiently, opening the car door.

  I followed her across the road walking along the grass verge with her for about fifty yards or so, until she turned off and led me through an open gate into an uncultivated field.

  “You can see the back of the Caravan Park from over there,” she told me, pointing on ahead of us.

  Although it was getting dark, I could make out how neat her shoulders looked beneath her cardigan, and how her narrow waistline enabled her to walk with poise over the broken ground. She was athletic, graceful, attractive, but that wasn’t all. What was it about her? At last, when we had reached the barbed wire fence separating us from the field that lay adjacent to the Park, we stood behind a clump of bushes for a while, and looked up and down the row of caravans.

  “It’s the fifth one down from the left,” she said, in a whisper. “So what do we do now?”

  “You don’t do anything, Karen. You go back to the car.”

  “Don’t start that again,” she snapped.

  “Well, we can’t just walk across the field, can we,” I told her. “They could see us, even in this light.”

  “They’re definitely there. I can see the car,” she cut in.

  There were a variety of bushes and trees skirting the field and I realised that it might be possible, after all, for us to get quite close without being seen. There was no sign of life coming from any of the other caravans and no other cars in the immediate vicinity, either.

  “We’ll skirt round the edge of the field and come up from the far end,” I said to her in a commanding tone of voice, although still fully aware of the odds that were stacked up against us.

  When we had come to within ten yards or so of the caravan we crouched down behind some bushes again. She looked at me questioningly. For a moment, which seemed frozen in time, I felt there was definitely something in our relationship that was being strengthened by this situation and was becoming more obvious, but which hadn’t been created by it.

  I took the gun from my jacket pocket, surprised at how comfortable it felt in my hand, and released the safety catch. It was too late to think about recoil or calibre, although I felt the weapon suited me.

  As I peered through the bushes I could hear, against the silence, faint movement from inside the caravan and could just make out a shadowy figure brush against the curtain on the rear window.

  “Now what,” Karen whispered.

  “Well, we can’t just wait here until they come out, can we?”

  “But you don’t know for certain that there are only two of them, John,” she said, turning her gaze away from the caravan to look anxiously into my eyes. “You can’t just burst in on them, if that’s what you mean.”

  She was right. But how long could we remain here, crouched down behind the bushes like two peeping toms?

  chapter nineteen

  As I pictured the occupants, sheltered and warm inside, while we crouched outside in the cold, I thought of something that might get things moving.

  Creeping up to the caravan and crawling down the side I reached the Calor gas cylinder that lay beside it, confident that no-one had heard me. Disconnecting the hose, I twisted the bracket out of shape, and crawled back to rejoin Karen in the bushes.

  Someone came out, almost at once.

  “It’s worked,” Karen whispered.

  It wasn’t enough, though. Who was still in the caravan? I wondered. But my work on the ‘bracket’ had helped, I saw. A second man appeared. It was Steve, who joined his companion bending over the cylinder. Although there might still be someone else inside, whatever it was I was going to do, I felt I had to do it right then!

  With the gun gripped firmly in my hand, I came to within a few feet of them before they heard me. They both looked round, still on their haunches, then stood up to face me.

  “Who’s still in there?” I asked them, nodding towards the door.

  “Nobody,” one of the men answered. It was the man who had taken the package from me in the lay-by and the same smile that he had worn on his face then was beginning to flicker on his lips.

  “Where’s the package?” I demanded of him.

  “We don’t have it,” he said peevishly.

  “Where’s the package?” I repeated, moving closer to them. “If you don’t tell me I’m going to drop one of you,” I said coldly, using one of Andy’s expressions as if it was my own.

  “Look, can’t we come to some kind of arrangement about all this, John?” Steve said in a surprising, conciliatory tone of voice.

  “For the last time, give me the package!” I said, levelling the gun at him.

  “It’s inside,” the smiling man said.

  “Where?”

  “I’ll show you,” he answered, turning towards the door.

  “You won’t,” I snapped. “Just tell me where it is.”

  “It’s in a cupboard in the bedroom.”

  This wasn’t a job for one person, I realised, greatly relieved to see that Karen had joined me of her own accord.

  “I’ll look,” she said, going towards the door, while the two men stood there, motionless, staring awkwardly at me, and then at Karen as she went into the caravan.

  Steve, even more so than the smiling man, looked dangerous. I knew what he would be thinking. To him, it wouldn’t seem likely that I would pull the trigger. He knew I was only a salesman in Bartons. I wasn’t really one of Andy’s group, not like Big Tom. But I also knew that he wouldn’t be certain, and I stared at him threateningly to reinforce his doubts.

  “Is this it?” Karen asked, as she re-appeared in the doorway gripping the package tightly in both hands.

  “That’s it,” I shouted back. I could see where it had been torn open by the smiling man when he had examined its contents in the lay-by.

  As she came over, there was an instant in which I saw, too late, that she was entering the field of fire and was passing between me and the two men. At almost the same time I knew I should have squeezed the trigger and stopped Steve taking advantage of what she had done. Instead, I hesitated.

  Steve sprang at me, the weight of his body causing me to stagger back off balance. Although I absorbed the first few blows he rained on me quite well, I knew I wouldn’t last for long. I was up against a determined and ruthless opponent, and, in spite of the many successful punches I had delivered in my youth, and lacking the killer instinct, what chance did I really have? But I still knew a few basics and managed to break free, pushing out the clenched fist of my left hand in an attempt to hold him off. I had done this often, years ago, and knew that it didn’t always work. But I also knew that it usually made your opponent hesitate, and he did.

  As he renewed his attack I couldn’t believe my luck. He was holding my other arm and clenched fist in disdain in his efforts to get closer. It was coming back to me. I was keeping my large bony hand straight at the wrist and was prepared to punch from the shoulder. This fight maybe wasn’t all that different after all, I saw to my surprise, for he was actually leaving his face exposed as he moved in on me. It was probably the only chance I was going to get and I knew I couldn’t afford to be even slightly off balance. I came round, just in time, and the heavy right-handed punc
h that I managed to deliver carried with it all the strength that was in me. When I felt the blow land on his jaw I knew it would stop him.

  As I stood watching its effect I knew that nobody had taught me how to punch like this. Were my Aunt Grace’s fears not so far fetched after all? Was it in my genes? But it had been a lucky punch, too, I knew, so maybe it was all down to chance. The result was the same, however, Steve staggered back and slumped down onto his knees.

  “The gun, John,” I heard Karen shout, as I turned to see her grappling with the smiling man in what had obviously been an attempt by her to keep him from interfering in the fight. He had a grip of both of her wrists and was overpowering her. Angrily hurling her up against the side of the caravan he rushed at me as I made my way towards the weapon where it had fallen on the grass. I took the full weight of his body crashing into me and at the same time the glancing blows he at once managed to land on me. As I staggered back one of his punches landed on my shoulder and drove me back onto the step outside the open door of the caravan. He came towards me again and sensing he was going to get the better of me I backed up the steps and stood in the doorway in the hope of fending him off. He came up after me and I kicked out at him just in time.

  When he came at me again the jet from the very aptly named multi-purpose dry powder extinguisher, which I had snatched from the wall just inside the doorway, hit him full in the face.

  He clattered back down the steps, coughing, rubbing his eyes and waving his arms about, helpless, as I threw the empty, but surprisingly heavy extinguisher at him. The metal casing caught him on the shoulder and I wondered what was coming next.

  Beyond the suffocating cloud of dry powder I saw him get to his feet and make for the weapon. He reached it before I did but, as he clumsily struggled to pick it up, rubbing his eyes, I took a running kick at it and watched it slide away from him on the grass.

  He raced after it but came to a sudden halt as Karen beat him to it, picking up the gun and pointing it at him, holding it clumsily in both hands. She didn’t look the part, but I knew what he would be thinking. He might get shot, even by accident.