Am I Being Followed?

by G. M. Hutchison

  Sitting with the package on my knee I ran my fingers over the tear made in it by the smiling man. I remembered that when he had taken it from me in the lay-by, he hadn’t actually counted the money. He had only checked to see that it was there. He had known who I was and what I was and hadn’t seen the need to closely examine the contents.

  There was every likelihood that Sears on this occasion wouldn’t count the money right away either. At least not until I had formed some idea of what looked likely to happen next. I would, therefore, hold back some of it until I knew what I was up against, I decided. Or even until I felt sure that Andy and I were in the clear.

  As I slit open the package on the kitchen table, I could see that the money consisted of one hundred-pound notes, laid out in four rows of five piles each. Each pile contained five wads held together by elastic bands. Taking one out and counting it, I found it to contain exactly £2,000. The package therefore held £200,000 in total.

  What Sears had done to earn this money I could only guess. In the eyes of his paymaster perhaps a key vote, a bribe, or even a strong influence exerted on some important Planning Committee meetings would seem cheap at the price.

  Squeezing fifty wads under the freezer, I laid out the remaining fifty on a fresh strip of brown paper and, in what later proved to be a crucial afterthought, removed the elastic bands.

  When I had sealed it, I rubbed the new package on the kitchen floor a few times to take the newness off it, finally slipping it into a plastic carrier bag and taking it through to the lounge.

  I was definitely thinking ‘like’ a criminal now. I could see that. But on this occasion I wasn’t exactly thinking ‘as’ a criminal, I felt. For I was, in a sense, fighting for my life.

  But was there anything I still hadn’t thought of, I asked myself, something that I should be doing that I wasn’t, something that would narrow the odds even further in my favour? I knew that there probably was but could, at the same time, see the futility of thinking about it now. Wouldn’t Captain Smith on the Titanic, the great passenger liner that sank in 1912, have moved information on the icebergs, about which he had been warned by wireless messages, up his list of priorities, slowed his ship, even sat in the wireless room, if he had recognised their true significance at the time. Similarly wouldn’t the British General, Lord Chelmsford, in command of the army invading Zululand in 1879 have given more personal attention to the defense of the Camp he was leaving behind at Isandhlwana where about eighteen hundred men had been slaughtered by Zulus armed mainly with spears of some kind.

  What, therefore, should I be moving up my list of priorities as I went to meet Sears? What should I be paying more attention to? But since neither of these men, described so critically in the Book Collection, were hopeless incompetents I could at least see I had one thing in common with them. Like them I didn’t have the benefit of hindsight and I would just have to do the very best I could.

  Before any further anxiety could surface I saw that it was time to go.

  chapter twenty-five

  As I stepped onto the deck of the boat, about to find out what I was really up against, it was a great comfort to know that on this occasion I had something which might work in my favour. I finally had an advantage. I was at last dealing with the world on its own terms and had unscrupulously narrowed the odds in my favour.

  “Is Andy here?” I demanded of Sears as he came out of the cabin to meet me.

  “I assume that’s the package you’ve got there?,” he asked.

  “It is.”

  “Well, I’m afraid the answer to your question is, to be quite accurate, no, Andy’s not here” Sears told me, abruptly.

  That this was a bad start was all too obvious. Did he, too, have some hidden advantage? Did he perhaps have reason to think that if I didn’t give him the package voluntarily he could just take it? I looked nervously about me, but we seemed to be alone.

  “Don’t worry Grant. It’s just a precaution,” he quickly explained. He’s on another boat, that’s all.”

  I felt I had to believe him. In view of what I had just done with the money, I couldn’t really blame him for doing something like this. I would play this bit by ear.

  The other boat was moored nearby and as we reached it, Sears stared pointedly back along the jetty.

  “You’re definitely alone?” he asked me, suspiciously.

  I followed his gaze all too willingly. I thought I had seen movement down there too, and had been worried for the same reason that he had. But there was no one to be seen.

  Opening the cabin door, he invited me to follow him inside where I at once saw Andy lying tied up on a bunk with some tape over his mouth.

  “For God’s sake, how long has he been like this? I exclaimed angrily, tugging at the tape with my free hand.

  “Good to see you John,” Andy gasped, a look of disbelief on his taught, unshaven features.

  “That’s far enough,” Sears snapped at me. “Now can I have the package” he demanded.

  It was a reasonable enough request, I knew, for it looked like Sears had kept his part of the bargain. So far, it was me who was doing the double crossing, not him.

  I took the package out of the carrier bag and laid it on the table deciding, at that point, to keep it sealed until Andy was on his feet. But, at once, Sears began to tear frantically at the wrapping and the notes spewed out onto the table. Fortunately, without the elastic bands they formed the untidy heap that I had foreseen would make them difficult to count. Hoping the delay would give me enough time to complete my task I turned away again and struggled with the knots.

  We all heard the noise, a kind of thump, and Sears looked at startled by it as I was. Someone else had come on board.

  Quickly scooping up the pile of loose notes Sears stuffed them back into the carrier bag and went over to the cabin door.

  “That noise, whatever it was, has nothing to do with me,” I told him. “I have no idea who’s out there.”

  I was losing precious seconds. I hadn’t yet freed Andy and I wasn’t sure of my next move. But the situation completely changed, yet again. A gun had appeared in Sears’ hand.

  “You go first, Grant,” he ordered, pointing towards the door.

  I wasn’t sure what was on his mind but it was obvious he thought I was a part of this new problem, and that I was a possible solution, too.

  “I’m coming out,” he shouted from the doorway. “And Grant’s coming with me.”

  Once more I had no idea what I was up against. Was this the Operation coming on the scene at the last minute, as I had feared, in spite of what Sears had led me to believe? Did it mean that if he didn’t shoot me, they would? Was it as bad as that?

  But Sears seemed every bit as uncertain as I was. It was obvious that this kind of thing wasn’t in his field of expertise any more than it was in mine. Going up onto the deck in this way, to investigate, how could he know from which direction he was being threatened? He looked desperate.

  As he pushed me out in front of him I expected the worst. I was on the wrong end of something again, and it wasn’t just a desk.

  Big Tom sent me sprawling, as he crashed down on top of us from the roof of the cabin. Still on my knees I turned in time to see Sears, from a similar position, get to his feet still holding the carrier bag, but without the gun.

  As Tom lifted him up bodily and hurled him against the rail the carrier bag flew through the air disgorging some of the notes which fluttered about like streamers before landing scattered about beside the bag in the water.

  Getting to his feet unsteadily, Sears stared over the side as if watching a loved one in distress. I could see what he was about to do. This was Sears. The greedy, heartless employer who had manipulated and oppressed me for so long. The man who only used people, who never treated them decently, who deprived his employees of their peace of mind and robbed them of their self r
espect. Was the moral law of God at last about to exact its demands? Was it true, as the Pastor had said, that whilst the ungodly may prosper, that bad people may meet with success, they only do so for a while? Like Himmler, the merciless Nazi mass murderer, and Goebbels the well-educated, unprincipled and evil Nazi propagandist out of the Book Collection, both of whom committed suicide when their day had come to an end, was Sears at last about to get what he deserved, I wondered, as I watched him jump overboard to retrieve the bag.

  I could see that the air trapped inside it had caused it to swell up and stay afloat as the current carried it towards the harbour entrance. But gradually it lost its buoyancy, the notes spilling out into the water, and before Sears could reach it, it had sunk out of sight.

  We watched Sears splash about in the water clutching some of the notes, as if trying to find the bag, and then, as if trying to keep afloat. None too soon, we saw he was in trouble and it took all of Big Tom’s strength and agility in the water to reach him before he went under.

  “Am I glad to see you,” I told the big man, as Sears lay spluttering and coughing beside us on the deck, my voice unashamedly charged with relief and admiration.

  Tom had just saved me from God knows what, and Sears from drowning, and yet his features had broken out into the broad, good-natured smile I knew so well from the pub. He seemed to be two different people. One – good natured, slow moving, and bulky. The other – deadly, quick, and powerfully built.

  How on earth did you get here Tom?” I asked him, as I headed for the cabin to get Andy.

  “From Liz’s. I came back up when I realised something had gone wrong, when I couldn’t get in touch with Andy. It was Karen who guessed you’d be down here.”

  As I untied Andy, explaining to him what had happened outside on the deck, I was surprised when he lay back on the bunk, shaking his head.

  “John, you’ve got a talent for this kind of thing,” he said, grinning.

  “You mean Tom has.”

  “I mean I owe you one, John,” he said, his grin fading. “Good to see you, big man,” he said to Tom, as we joined him on the deck.

  Sears was sitting there, soaked and dejected.

  “So, what do we do now?” I said to Andy.

  “You mean, with him?” he asked, poking Sears with a pole he had found lying on the cabin floor.

  “We can’t just leave him here, can we?” I reasoned anxiously.

  “We don’t do anything with him, Andy replied. It’s up to the Operation. It’s their money that’s sunk to the bottom.”

  Sears looked up at us, a look of desperation on his face.

  “Tell him, Grant,” he begged.

  “He says the money’s his, Andy,” I explained. “He says the Operation doesn’t know anything about the package going astray.”

  “About Steve you mean.”

  “Steve worked for me, Andy,” Sears pleaded. You know that. They know that. As far as they’re concerned I’ve been paid what I was due. What good will it do telling them about Steve. They’re not going to pay me twice, are they?”

  I almost felt sorry for him as I watched him sitting there soaked to the skin, making no attempt to get to his feet. He had lost his money and very nearly his life. But ‘oh how people like him squirmed when they were on the receiving end’, I thought instead. Suddenly bereft of their power, no longer able to disregard the feelings of other people, oh how people like him then demonstrated the intimate knowledge they really had of what was right and what was wrong. And oh how much they wanted, actually expected, the reasonable and decent treatment they had so consistently and maliciously denied to others. Liars in their own hearts, denying the existence of the great moral laws concerning man’s disposition towards others, and yet, when called to account, wholeheartedly invoking these very laws in their own defence. And so I didn’t feel sorry for him. I was a judge who had been a victim.

  “Why should we do you any favours,” Andy said to him.

  “Telling them won’t do you any good, either,” Sears pleaded in reply. “If the Operations thinks their cover is blown there’s no saying what they will do to us.

  “What will they do to you, you mean,” Andy replied contradicting him, and then turning to Tom who stood shivering beside us. “What do you think, big man?” he asked

  “I’ll need to get out of these clothes, Andy,” Tom said. “I suppose we could tip him over the side or something like that,” he added helpfully.

  Andy nodded slowly in agreement, but he was looking at me.

  Tom followed his gaze and looked at me, too. They were going to let me decide.

  The big man didn’t look like a killer. Not a real killer. But he certainly looked like he was capable of being one if he thought it was necessary.

  The outcome was hanging in the balance, therefore, and I could see that Sears realised this, too. The frightened, exhausted look had gone from his face. He now looked terror-stricken.

  “Don’t let them do this, Grant,” he whined.

  “We’d better get him out of sight in the meanwhile” Andy said to Tom, impatiently. “We’ll take him into the cabin” and then, turning to me, again, “Come on John. Make up your mind. What do we do with him?”, his words signifying to me that I was definitely one of them now.

  *

  As I watched them push and drag Sears into the cabin all I could think about at first was the money lying hidden back at the flat. At all costs I had to hang on to it. There was no point in saying to myself that, after all this, the money was no longer important. It was the other way round. After all this, money was more important than ever. I now knew of its power and that the lack of it was a kind of impotence. As far as I was concerned it was all going to hinge on this.

  With Sears out of the way I would be sole owner of the bank notes tucked up under the freezer. He was all that stood between me and a clear-cut solution to all my problems.

  And he had brought all this on himself. If he hadn’t done what he had to Andy he wouldn’t be in this situation. And if he hadn’t so often treated me in the way that the had, I might have had some sympathy for him. But all he was to me now was unfinished business, a loose end.

  This wouldn’t be murder, it would be self-defence, I told myself, and I couldn’t afford to let my guard drop now. In deciding to hold back the money I had fully engaged in this other way of life. I could now identify with Andy and could understand his attitude. It would be better if Sears got what he deserved. Better for all of us. And anyway, I wouldn’t have to do anything myself. Big Tom would do it.

  As I went over to the cabin to tell Andy of my decision I felt convinced I was doing the right thing. I was doing what any reasonable person would do in this kind of situation. True, not many people would advocate killing someone as a solution to their problems, not many decent people that is, but not many decent people would have been under the same kind of pressure as I had been under, and had been under for quite some considerable time.

  All this apart, you certainly didn’t have to squeeze people, ordinary people like me, very hard to bring out the worst in them, I reflected guiltily. Peer pressure alone could work wonders. What was so bad if everyone else was doing it, if your companions expected it of you, if Tom and Andy expected it of me? But hadn’t that been one of the excuses put forward by the otherwise respectable working-class Germans described in the Book Collection, who had donned a uniform and set about slaughtering defenceless women and children?

  Surely what I was going to do wasn’t nearly as bad as that. Killing Sears wouldn’t even turn my stomach, as their crime had turned theirs. Maybe I was more like Eichmann than I was like them. At his trial in Israel in 1961 for organising the mass murder of millions he had said that he had just wanted to be thorough, to do what had seemed to be the most efficient thing at the time. Like him, I didn’t hate my victim and I wouldn’t have to get my own hands
dirty. Tom would do it for me.

  I certainly wasn’t deluded like Eichmann’s superior Himmler, who almost eulogised bestiality during an address in which he called those who carried out his horrific orders decent men. Although perhaps I did resemble him in one way. I wanted to make sure, like he had, when he had incinerated the bodies of those he had shot or gassed, that I didn’t leave any loose ends lying about.

  That Andy and Tom were leaving this decision up to me meant a lot. I had finally arrived. I was entitled to bring a bit of my old self along and project these historical figures into the situation, however ludicrous and time consuming it might seem. And, anyway, I couldn’t help myself. What mattered was whether or not these insights were leading me in the right direction. Who were these men I was so characteristically using to shed light on my predicament? Most of them had been on the wrong side. Was I being perversely selective?

  But good men, too, like Field Marshal Haig in the First World War and Air Marshall Harris in the Second had gone down a not altogether dissimilar road. The former had repeatedly sacrificed the lives of his soldiers by conducting battles of attrition, while the latter, deeply convinced of the need for it, had dropped thousands of tons of high explosives on German cities killing thousands of unarmed and defenceless civilians. So it wasn’t just the behaviour of evil men I was emulating, it was the behaviour of mankind in general.

  At last I realised who the man was that stood at the apex of my current thought processes. I could see I was being driven in my attempts to justify killing Sears by the same forces that had driven Hitler. I was about to employ in effect the same evil means as he had, cold blooded murder, to achieve what I personally believed was a not ignoble end. Was it wrong of him to have wanted to gather his ‘family’ together, to unite them and restore their confidence; was it wrong of him to have desperately wanted more land so that they could fulfil themselves and get on in the world; to have tried to protect them from people he thought were a very bad influence, and from others who weren’t good enough; and to have sought the very best and lasting solutions to his ‘family’s’ troubles with their ‘neighbours?’