by Ripley, Mike
‘Rufus, you’re so full of shit sometimes,’ said Lawrence.
I saw Yonk’s feet move towards him.
‘I’m not sure I can,’ said Melanie, probably saving Lawrence from a smacking.
‘What do you mean, little lady?’ Rufus asked in a sing-song voice.
‘It was mostly at night when he did it. I just saw the headlights of his car down the bottom of the field, up towards the wood. It was only today when I saw him this afternoon that I realised what he was doing.’
‘But, like, you know the general area, huh?’ Rufus coaxed her. ‘Where we could start digging.’
‘For Christ’s sake, Rufus, there are fucking fields out there and it’s the middle of the night.’
Rufus looked at Lawrence as if giving him his second warning. Next sign of disrespect and he’d surely shoot him.
‘I could show you the place where I saw him this afternoon,’ said Mel.
She was patting her mother’s arm, reassuring her that she knew what she was doing. She was buying time and I thought I’d better help her.
‘Look in Scooter’s Jeep,’ I said and they all looked at me kneeling there on the floor. ‘He’s got a shovel and a metal detector in the back. Or he did earlier.’
‘Now that’s helpful,’ said Rufus, ‘truly helpful. You should take note, Lawrence. Mr Angel here is being totally positive. I like that. Fatboy, check the late Mr Scooter for some keys. Where do we find this Jeep of his?’
‘It’s up the hill by the office building,’ said Beatrice.
‘Thanking you, ma’am,’ Rufus said with a flourish. ‘You see, everybody’s being positive. I like that.’
He picked up his golfing umbrella from where it had fallen.
‘Now I’m going to escort this little lady out to my shiny new BMW and we’re going to dig for buried treasure.’
‘No, you can’t!’ Beatrice snapped, grabbing the handles of Mel’s chair and pulling her backwards.
‘Can do, will do,’ grinned Rufus, then he put on a real hangdog face. ‘Oh, don’t worry about her. She can hold the umbrella, she won’t get wet. And while we’re gone, you guys can get my beer loaded into my trailer. It’ll be good exercise for you. Yonk here’ll make sure you do a good job.’
‘You don’t mean me?’ Lawrence pointed a finger at his own chest.
‘’Specially you – you’re beginning to irritate me. Oh and Yonk, make sure Mr Angel here doesn’t strain himself too much. He’s got some driving to do later.’
After about ten minutes of watching our feeble efforts, Yonk threw down his wooden club in disgust and began to hump cases of beer from the stack into the trailer himself. He was virtually doing them one-handed and was loading three to my one even before he got into his stride.
Rufus Radabe had pushed Mel out of the door and into the night and then we had heard a car engine start. Then another vehicle had roared down the side of the shed and we guessed that must be Fatboy driving Scooter’s Jeep, on his way to the treasure hunt.
Apart from that, nobody had said much as we concentrated on our chain gang, passing cases of beer. Except we weren’t as efficient as a chain gang and I made Beatrice climb into the trailer so she could push the cases deeper inside. She seemed grateful for the work as it took her mind off what might be going on between Mel and Rufus.
But it was Lawrence who broke first.
He slammed a case on to the trailer and turned to Yonk.
‘I don’t have to do this! Look, get on your phone, find out what that nutter is doing. He could be half-way back to London by now.’
Yonk just looked at him and flipped another case from the pile to the truck as if it was an envelope.
‘With the money,’ Lawrence added and that struck home.
Yonk was certainly not keen on being stranded way out here in the countryside with a dead body in the room. He pulled a small mobile from his back pocket and speed-dialled.
‘Rufus? Yo, how’s it going?’
He grunted a couple of times, then said ‘Cool’ and closed the phone.
‘Looks like they’ve found something. They’re starting to dig.’
He looked at us and nodded at the pile of beer. I could take a hint and I resumed loading and so did Lawrence.
‘I shouldn’t be doing this,’ he said.
‘No, you bloody shouldn’t,’ I said. ‘You’re supposed to be one of the good guys.’
‘Screw that on what they pay us.’
‘You’re the one who told Rufus about the Customs post at the French end of the Tunnel, aren’t you?’
I clumped another case down. We were getting ahead of Beatrice who couldn’t cope pulling the cases into the belly of the trailer.
‘That’s right, Sherlock. It put a time frame on things and that was all to the good. Anything goes on too long and patterns emerge that even we couldn’t miss. Anyway, I knew Rufus was a greedy bastard.’
‘Did you do a similar trick on the Czechs in Dover? Let them build up a stock then hijack it without paying?’
‘I told you he was greedy.’ Then he lowered his voice. ‘But he’s not gone this far before.’
‘Got any ideas?’ I whispered, slamming down a case to cover my voice.
Lawrence shook his head and started to chew on his bottom lip.
It looked like it was all down to me again.
‘Hey!’ I said loudly to anyone and everyone. ‘Has anyone given a thought to stacking this load right?’
The three of them stopped working but nobody said anything.
‘Look, we don’t have enough beer for a full load so this lot’s going to rattle around like a pea in a drum unless we stack it properly. We should start at the back, near the wheels. Put most of the weight on the rear axles otherwise the whole thing could swing out of control.’
Or at least I hoped it would. From what I remembered about loading artics, you always started in the middle. Too much weight at the back can be dangerous.
‘Okay, okay, I’ll do it myself.’
I made a big deal of having to work with idiots and huffed and puffed as I climbed into the trailer.
‘You just keep out of my way, woman,’ I said to Beatrice, staring hard at her. ‘If I’m going to drive this crate I don’t want any accidents.’
I think she got it, but I didn’t have the time or energy to worry too much.
Facing out from the trailer, I began to stack cases two-wide as Yonk heaved them up to me, his biceps getting the sort of work-out he paid good money for down the gym. Lawrence continued to slam cases down to my left, pushing them towards Beatrice who was edging her way deeper into the trailer.
I had my stack two wide and six high when Lawrence said:
‘Who’s this Cartwright-Humphreys character anyway?’
Behind me I heard Beatrice take a sharp intake of breath.
‘Who?’ I said, taking another case from Yonk and placing it next to my stack so I could stand on it to pile the next two even higher. I glanced at Yonk. He was bending over to pick-up a case from a pile of three.
‘That last car plate you asked me to check out. It’s registered to a Christian Cartwright-Humphreys of Harley Street. What’s he got to do with anything?’
‘Nothing to do with this lot,’ I said. Yonk was bending to pick-up the second from bottom case. My stack was now eleven high. ‘That was a freebie. I needed a favour.’
‘Thanks a bunch,’ he said angrily. ‘Do you know the hassle I have to go through to . . .’
Yonk was bending for the bottom case.
I jumped off the case I was standing on and positioned myself behind my stack, put my back to it and pushed.
I don’t know how many cases hit Yonk. I think I managed to dislodge about a dozen and most of them seem to bounce satisfyingly off parts of his body.
‘Shit!’ screamed Lawrence, jumping out of the way.
Then, when he saw Yonk wasn’t moving, he swung a foot at his head and shouted, ‘Bastard!’
‘Come
on,’ I yelled to Beatrice, grabbing her hand and jumping down from the trailer, careful to avoid broken glass. Beer was seeping everywhere. It was as if Yonk was bleeding beer.
Lawrence was making to kick Yonk again, just to take out his frustration on something that wouldn’t kick back. He was actually clearing broken cases of beer away from Yonk’s head to give himself a better shot.
‘Is he dead?’ Beatrice said.
‘He deserves to be!’ Lawrence screamed, pulling back his foot.
‘That’s enough,’ I said.
Lawrence looked at me long enough to realise I was holding Mel’s shotgun on him and lowered his foot to the floor. Beatrice looked at me wide-eyed and I prayed she wouldn’t say something stupid.
‘Find something to tie him up with.’
Lawrence looked at me sulkily.
‘There are some old ropes in the trailer,’ said Beatrice.
I looked in and found she was right. Yonk and Fatboy had tied four lengths of rope to the inner stanchions of the trailer to hang on to while they were riding in the back.
‘Get it,’ I told Lawrence, waving the shotgun at him.
He scowled, but climbed up into the trailer.
I climbed over the debris of smashed beer bottles, treading on one of Yonk’s legs in the process, and moved a case of Kronenbourg so I could remove the mobile phone from his back pocket.
One of the cases had caught him on the back of the head and smashed his face into the floor. His nose was broken and bleeding freely.
‘Hurry up, Lawrence, he won’t be out for long.’
Lawrence was struggling with the knots on one of the ropes, cursing to himself and then producing a lighter, flicking the flame and burning it off.
‘I want you to take the gun, Beatrice,’ I said so he could hear, ‘and keep an eye on both these two. I’m going to see if I can get Mel.’
I handed her the gun and she stuck her face up to mine and mouthed the words:
‘It’s not loaded.’
‘They don’t know that,’ I whispered.
20
I ran the length of the shed to where the door was still open as Rufus had left it when he wheeled Mel’s chair out, and peered out into the darkness. The rain had eased off but it still took me a minute to focus on the one source of light this side of the North Downs. Even then, I was too far away to pick out the detail of what was going on.
Down across the sloping hop field and half-way up the track towards the wood were two pools of light formed by the intersecting beams of two sets of headlights. Occasionally a shadow of movement would flit across the lights. As far as I could tell, the treasure hunt was still under way.
I jogged back down the length of the truck to where Lawrence was tying up Yonk under the two eyes and two barrels Beatrice was levelling at him. He had a five-foot length of rope and had put a slip knot in one end to form a noose around Yonk’s neck. With the other end he secured Yonk’s wrists behind his back. Still unconscious, Yonk lay there and let him do it. An inflating and then deflating bubble of blood from his nose told me he was still breathing.
‘What are you going to do?’ Lawrence asked.
‘A deal – if I can,’ I said.
‘What about Mel?’
‘She’s part of the deal,’ I said, but Beatrice didn’t look convinced.
‘I meant what are you going to do about me?’
Lawrence pulled a case of beer off the remaining pile and stood it on its end so he could sit on it. He picked up two loose bottles of beer, held one over the other until their metal tops locked and then flicked until the top came off the bottom one with a fountain of foam which soaked his trousers.
‘You just sit there and take it easy,’ I said, resisting the urge to make him swallow the bottle as well as the beer. ‘We’ll see what happens if matey-boy out there doesn’t want to deal.’
‘What if something happens to Mel?’ said Beatrice through gritted teeth.
‘Then I’ll leave him,’ I pointed to Lawrence, ‘to you.’
He looked distinctly uncomfortable at that and I wanted to say If they move, kill ‘em, but I didn’t think Beatrice would get the reference and anyway, she had no ammunition.
‘How are you going to deal with Rufus?’ he said.
I showed him the mobile I had taken from Yonk.
‘I’m going to give him a ring.’
I tried to guess how much beer we had managed to load into the trailer before I closed the rear doors. However much it was, it would have to do.
I jogged back towards the cab, tugging my gloves tighter and zipping up my jacket. At the back of the cab I stopped and disconnected the red air line which released the brakes on the trailer. With those out and whatever load we had stacked in the most unsafe position towards the rear axle, I had – I hoped – a highly unstable vehicle. I also hoped I knew what I was doing.
I climbed up into the cab and started the engine, letting it idle while I climbed down again and pushed the sliding door open with my shoulder. Back in the cab, I released the tractor brakes and edged the rig out of the shed, lining it up with the concrete track disappearing down into the dark field.
Then I hit all the lights, full beams, and the horn.
The mobile in my pocket rang within fifteen seconds.
‘Yonk! My man! What the fuck’s happenin’?’
‘Hello, Rufus, I was just going to call you. Found your treasure trove yet?’
‘Who the –?’
‘Nobody you know, Rufus,’ I said, anxious not to give him too much time to work out an edge. ‘Straight deal for you. Take your money and let the girl go. We’ll clean things up here.’
‘You’ve still got some of my money,’ he said, the instinctive businessman.
I had forgotten that the briefcase I had collected that afternoon was still lying on the floor of the shed near Scooter’s body.
‘Cut your losses,’ I said into the phone. ‘Go now.’
‘Put my man Yonk on.’
This was taking too long. I revved the engine, hoping the noise sounded as threatening across the fields as it did in the cab.
‘Can’t do that, he’s indisposed.’
‘In. Dis. Posed,’ he said slowly, like it was three words. ‘That’s interesting. Don’t think Yonk’s ever been that before. You’re a man of talent, Mr Angel. You hurt him?’
‘Not as bad as you hurt Scooter. Now let the girl go and get the fuck out of here.’
‘And if I choose not the fuck to get the fuck out of here, what then?’
‘Then I’m gonna run right over you,’ I said. And hung up.
I gunned the engine, dropped into fourth gear and floored the accelerator.
As the truck moved forward, agonisingly slowly at first or so it seemed, I picked out the wet, mud-smeared track and basically pointed the wheels at it.
I was still too far away to see anything clearly, but I thought I could make out a blurring of the headlights of the cars up the other side of the slope and then, quite definitely, one set of headlights began to move. And they were retreating, back up the hill into the wood.
I hit the horn again as I changed gears, picking up speed. If I had been where they were, facing a charging truck lit up like a Christmas tree, I would have got the hell out of there.
Except the lights which had gone backwards were now coming forward, down the slope, aiming for a spot exactly where I reckoned my forty-one-foot truck would be in about ninety seconds.
Even worse, the headlights of what I could now make out was Scooter’s Jeep were picking something up on the limit of their beams. Another vehicle in the middle of the track, going hell for leather downhill.
It was Mel in her wheelchair, pumping her arms like pistons. If the Jeep didn’t catch her and kick her airborne, she would wrap herself around the radiator of my truck. There was no alternative and it was going to happen any second.
The phone rang.
‘You want to play chicken? Let’s play chicken!’<
br />
Rufus’s voice was a distorted, metallic scream in my ear. I flung the mobile on to the passenger seat and moved my foot over the brake. My speedometer read 45 miles per hour and I could feel the trailer swinging behind me on the slippery surface.
‘I’m gonna beat you!’ Rufus shouted out of the phone. ‘She’s mine. Watch her fly, man! Watch her fly!’
Trouble was, he was right.
There was no way I could reach Mel before the Jeep and even if I did it would only be to smash her to pulp. My hand hovered over the Differential Lock switches. With those on I could risk swinging off the track as I braked and hope to get enough grip on the churned-up field to avoid totalling Mel, the rig and me.
‘Here I come, little lady!’ shouted the ghost voice in the cab.
Mel’s chair had reached the bottom of the slope where it turned up the track I was speeding down. Rufus and the Jeep were yards away from her as the chair’s momentum slowed. Feet away.
‘Holy shit!’ boomed Rufus’s voice.
In an instant, Mel threw herself from her chair, landing on the track close enough for me to see her face in my headlights. She rolled over twice, like a commando in training, and then she was up and running with long, loping strides towards the hop field to my right.
‘Keep running!’ I shouted, though there was no way she could hear me.
The Jeep hit the empty wheelchair, booting it up into the air and on to the bonnet of the Jeep where it smashed into the windscreen. The Jeep swerved wildly and began to lose momentum, skidding sideways into my path.
I forgot about the Differential Lock, pounded the accelerator, swung the wheel to the left off the track and as the cab wheels took their first bounce on earth rather than concrete, I stood on the brakes.
The trailer, now out of alignment and travelling faster than the tractor unit, its wheels still on the slippery track, began to hang out and overtake the cab.
I had a birds’-eye view in my wing mirror. Rufus got an even better one as forty feet of badly loaded trailer jacknifed straight towards him; an unstable, unstoppable battering ram.
I think I was almost in a standing position, hanging on to the wheel for dear life when the impact came.