My Little Armalite

by James Hawes

  —Well, yes, the story’s arc is perhaps a little weak. And I shall say so in my review. I just needed to find out if it’s, you know, technically wrong as well. Which I gather it is.

  —Absolutely. A load of rubbish! Your author simply hasn’t done his research. And you can quote me on that. In fact, you bloody better had, John, ha ha!

  —Ha ha. Well, thanks, Brian.

  —You will mention me to your contact as well, won’t you, when you have lunch with her again?

  —Sorry? Oh yes, yes of course.

  —I could review archaeology, history, anthropology, anything like that really. I mean, I’m obviously fully qualified to do it, for God’s sake, I just need the break. I can talk to a camera as I walk about without falling over things. I’ve been practising in the departmental technicians’ lab, after work. I can even do it with a glass of wine in my hand, just like that cook off the telly, oh you know who I mean, John. Surprisingly difficult, actually, but I’ve cracked it now. And I’ve got this really wonderful idea for a telly series on archaeology. I mean just because I wasn’t the supporting actor on some stupid comedy series twenty years ago doesn’t mean I can’t talk about archaeology on TV, does it? Just because I haven’t got some kind of trademark hair or a bloody silly regional accent? I could do it, John. I could knock them dead. I just need to meet the right person, just to get that break! If I could only get about a bit more, see the right people, you know. Well, you do know, obviously. Look, I’m coming to a conference in London early next year, perhaps I could give you a call, we could have a drink, try to arrange a meeting with someone down there?

  —Yes. Right. Bye, Brian.

  I killed my phone.

  Oh well then.

  23: Liberal Blather

  I sat there, dumb, unthinking. Obviously, I had to call the police eventually; but now I could obviously never call the police. It was already too late.

  Mr Goode, as you know, our forensic teams tell us that according to the evidence of the soil matrix, there is no doubt, I repeat no doubt, that ‘a substantial period of time’ must have elapsed between you finding the Armalite and you calling the police. Now, can you take us through your actions, and indeed your thoughts, during this substantial period of time, please?

  You found the gun. When, exactly? You did not immediately call the police. Why, exactly? You partially reburied the gun. For what purpose, exactly? You had a visitor. Who, exactly? You went to the pub. To do what, exactly? It seems that you normally hardly ever go to pubs, do you, Mr Goode? But tonight you did. You claim that you watched half an England match. But it seems that you normally care very little for the fortunes of the England football team, do you, Mr Goode? Yet tonight you claim that you went to cheer them on. Except that then you left the pub, halfway through the game, with England winning against France. Hardly the behaviour of a real England fan, ladies and gentlemen of the jury!

  You then made a call to a number in Dublin. The number of an Irishman whom we know to have been an active member of the Troops Out Movement. After which there was a further delay and a further phone call to an archaeologist, an expert on burial and concealment, before you finally informed the police that you had found a highly dangerous weapon which, I put it to you, you had immediately known to be such.

  Or should I say, before you decided to inform the police? Because, clearly, that’s what it was, a conscious decision, and one which took you some time, wasn’t it, Mr Goode? Not the simple, instinctive reaction of a normal, law-abiding man. A dec-is-ion. And it wasn’t an easy one, was it? Well, it took you almost three hours! Which clearly implies that during these three hours there was another, alternative course in your mind as well, doesn’t it, Mr Goode?

  An alternative to calling the police, when you have just found an Armalite in your garden? Now, what on earth might that alternative have been, Mr Goode? Or should I say Dr Goode? Ah yes, of course, a university lecturer. East German studies. Ah, and you were actually resident there, I see. Twice, in fact. You threw stones at the police during the Miners’ Strike, didn’t you, Dr Goode? Sorry? It was only a very small stone? I see. How fortunate for the officer concerned! Now then, Dr Goode, I have some photographs from a recent anti-Iraq-War demonstration that I’d like you to look at with us …

  Would they take my laptop away to search through it? Of course they would. They always do, these days. And my PC at work, naturally. Oh dear God, what had I said, and to whom, in chatty emails about Iraq and suchlike? About Bush and Blair? About capitalism in general? About the G8 riots in Germany? About the police themselves! I mean, I was not some maniac, just a perfectly normal humanities lecturer who blipped off, most days, the sort of clever, merry emails that humanities lecturers do blip off to one another, sure of mutual approval from fellow readers of The Paper.

  Christ, it’s just liberal blather, none of it actually means anything.

  But would the police see it all that way?

  Potentially not.

  This was all so unfair.

  So what was I going to do? Tell them or not?

  Couldn’t not. Couldn’t.

  Think properly. Think straight. Newton, not Einstein

  Ring-ring!

  —Sarah darling! How are you all?

  24: How Hard Can It Be?

  —Sarah darling! How are you all? Did you get there safely? Well, obviously you did. How are the boys and Mariana? Oh, I’m sorry. What? All over the taxi seat? Oh, darling, poor you. And how are your parents? Right. R-ight. Oh God. Well, perhaps the hotel would give them a less noisy room if you asked. Oh. Well, you could try asking again. Of course you have, sorry. Do you want me to try? I do speak quite good Spanish, after all. Well, yes, I’m sure they do, but it still sometimes makes a difference if you can speak to them in … OK, OK, no, I’m sure you explained very well. What do you mean, they just looked at you? That’s ridiculous. It’s supposed to be a four-bloody-star place! I’m not shouting at you, darling, I’m just … Well, yes, it was a special last-minute website rate. I did tell you. I told you I’d got a great deal. And it was. Sorry, yes, I mean, it was in theory, it … Did I look on Tripadvisor.com? Well, I couldn’t, could I, because they wouldn’t actually specify the hotel until after I’d booked, but they guaranteed four stars in the centre of … What, you mean deliberately, so that people can’t look on Tripadvisor? Come on, darling, I think that’s a bit far-fetched, I mean, surely … ? Who told you? Well, what would the night porter know about things like that? Yes, I’m sure he was very nice, but … Right. Yes, I agree. Absolutely. No, no, definitely. Leave. Walk. I’m sure that you can find somewhere good for that price. Or more, quite right. If you need to. Well, yes, of course I know you wouldn’t pay more if you didn’t need to, I just meant … What? Oh, we’ve got, um, about two thousand pounds before our credit limit on that one, I think, although, I mean, obviously, we did plan this on the basis that … No, no, we didn’t plan this on the basis that your parents wouldn’t be able to sleep a wink, no. Certainly. I agree. Yes, wherever you can. If they really can’t do anything about it, I mean. Me? Oh, God, yes, of course everything’s fine here, there’s no reason to worry about me, you go and sort out … Where was I earlier? Well, um, I must have popped out. Just for some air. Drunk? Of course not. I just, drank that bottle of beer quite quickly, that’s all, to relax from work. Fine, absolutely, great, yes, the VIP’s really coming along! Worth it? Oh, clearly, darling. No question. Yes, yes. I’ll call tomorrow. No, I won’t be popping out again tonight. Goodnight, darling!

  I put down the phone.

  Suddenly, I could feel every sea and mountain of the two thousand miles between Sarah and me. I was cold. I wanted to go back to the pub, and noise, and light.

  Stop. Clear my head. No more pub, for Christ’s sake. I’m supposed to be sobering up now.

  What to do about the gun in the garden?

  Concentrate.

  What if I just dump it?

  Jesus Christ, of course!

  How obvious. I
must have been mad not to have thought about it.

  No gun, no police, job done.

  Very well. The logic holds.

  Just dig the bloody thing up, dump it anywhere, and good riddance.

  Done and dusted this very night, then start afresh on the VIP tomorrow, as if nothing had happened.

  I mean, how hard could that be for a man with a PhD?

  PART TWO

  Into the Forest

  25: Power

  Some ten minutes later, I squatted damply in the garden shed and surveyed the open suitcase, my unwanted treasure, by the light of the powerful lantern torch which my parents had given us as a house-warming present. They had chosen this not because it might be a handy thing to have about the place when a fuse blew, but because you never knew when far more than just fuses might blow. After all, they had lived through the blackout; they had trudged through the hopeless snows of 1947; they had nursed me, their precious only infant son, through the winter of 1962–3; they had seen out the energy strikes of the early seventies. They knew about power cuts all right.

  I had strung their lamp from the roof of the shed, where it now gently swayed.

  Light and shadow played over the wide-open suitcase.

  The gun had no connection to me at this moment, did it? Of course not. None at all. It was not mine. It never had been. Provided it was not found actually in my garden or house (or shed). Or in my red hands. The danger to me now, the only danger, was being caught in the actus reus of trying to get rid of it. That instant would indeed smack strongly of guilt.

  The logic was inescapable: having concluded (as I had) that I must get rid of the blasted thing myself, making the act of the dumping as smooth and swift as possible had to now be my prime and indeed only concern.

  You see? Most criminals get caught simply because they are stupid: but I have a PhD!

  But how to do it, exactly?

  Dragging the suitcase out of its grave and across the lawn to my little shed, just for closer examination prior to disposal, had thoroughly convinced me that to lug the entire thing, as it was, out into the London night was in fact quite out of the question. Manhandling it across the garden, through the house, on to the street and (now in full view of everyone) up into the boot of the car, when I could hardly even lift it? Struggling to heave it out of the boot again and chuck it off a bridge without being noticed by anyone or picked up for parking on a red line? Impossible.

  You see, I had decided, and so quickly that it had felt more like instinct than decision, that the river was the only place for it to go.

  Consider: if I simply drove to some alleyway or indeed quiet roadside and left it there, who knew who would find it first? An innocent child or a horrible villain. Might the gun not go off in a waste crusher, say, potentially endangering the lives of lowpaid workers? Indeed. What if a would-be murderer, who might otherwise never actually have murdered anyone, found it and now became a monster? Horrible. If it fell into the hands of racist thugs? Incalculable. Or say an overheated young madrasa scholar was the first to happen upon it and took this as a sign, at last, for him alone, from Allah? Disastrous, for community relations as well as for his victims! A resentful teen stalks the unlit alleyways, his acne boiling beneath his hood at a supposed lack of respect; he kicks viciously at an old suitcase in passing, stubs his toe, ponders, opens the box and finds within it his ticket to vengeance on the world? All too believable.

  No, no, anything was possible here in London, this lair of countless darknesses. Into the river with it it was.

  Total submersion in water for a long period had another advantage. This would (I gathered from a recent high-profile homicide case) radically reduce the chance of my DNA being identifiable if by some accident the gun was found. Not that there was much chance of this anyway, and as far as I knew I had never given a DNA sample in the first place, but you never know with police technology. Dr Crippen, after all, had been certain that he would get to America before the news of his crime broke.

  Yes, one way or another, my course was clear: into the river, like some Celtic sacrificial helmet, safely put beyond all possible use. Let the archaeologists find it in two thousand years, and wonder! But it had to be quick and simple and mishap-proof. As things stood, the suitcase was just too bloody heavy.

  Clearly, the vast weight was due not to the gun itself but to the gallons and gallons of foul old grease in which it was entombed. I could pour or shovel the stuff out. But then what of disposal? Even if the horrid filth did eventually slide down through the grate at the bottom of the drainpipe and so into the sewers (which was by no means certain), could I in all conscience visit such damage on the environment? Surely not.

  And anyway, the suitcase itself was too large to fit through the windows of my Mercedes, so even if I did poison the local biosphere and thereby lighten the case enough to hoick it easily about with the gun still inside, I would nonetheless have to actually pull over, stop, get out, go round, open the door, get it out, lift it over the side and chuck it into the river, then get back in and drive away. All without awakening suspicion.

  But! Now let us suppose that I simply did it the other way around. What, that is, if I took the gun from the grease rather than vice versa?

  What a difference this would make!

  Think: how big and heavy could an Armalite be? Presumably the ‘lite’ means lightweight. The gun was evidently in pieces, so the obvious answer was to take the bits out as they were and get them all to my car in an innocent-looking bin bag, or bags if need be, then drive off (having sobered up, of course).

  You see? That way, I could just sling the bin bag(s) easily from the window of my car over the parapet of some bridge or other, quite probably without even having to fully stop. The suitcase itself, the mere guiltless shell, I could just drop at the local dump anytime I chose.

  There was, in short, no rational doubt.

  Unpacking the Armalite was indeed the only logical option.

  A distasteful job of work for a pacific and liberal man, to be sure, and one that I had certainly not asked for, but there you were.

  With these firm and clear thoughts lighting my way and the torch swinging gently from the rafters of the shed, I swiftly laid out that morning’s dismembered edition of The Paper carefully on the floor of the shed around the suitcase, to a depth of several sheets. It was the day of the weekly social-work jobs supplement so I had newsprint aplenty to work with.

  I now shoved my fingers, with some difficulty, into the small rubber gloves Sarah uses when washing up, to save her hands (her lovely hands! One day we would get a cleaning lady!). Then I knelt on the newspaper, took a deep breath in case another bubble of rancid gas should belch forth, and boldly kneaded my sheathed hands deep into the cold stew of nineteen-eighties axle grease.

  26: A Thick Bed of Liberal Broadsheet

  Roughly I handswiped the cloying grease from each item as it came out and soon I was sure that I had fished out all that lurked within.

  Arrayed on the thick bed of liberal broadsheet there now lay a small selection of heavy packages which had clearly been made with extreme care. They consisted of double or treble plastic bags, burned lightly so as to lock the openings, with bubble wrap between the layers, containing shapes entombed in some kind of putty-like substance.

  I held a couple of these lumpish forms up to the gently yawing torchlight. Aha. Of course. Even I knew that. Those identical, cigarette-packet-sized things (there were six of them, all told) must clearly be the, well, you know, the reloading things, the magazines or whatever you call them. Boxes, in short, of bullets. Bullets? That sounded curiously dated and childlike. I had been given bullets, small silver plastic ones, with the belt of my cowboy gun-and-holster set, at five years old. Ordnance? Too technical. Ammunition? Yes, but possibly too formal still. Ammo? Too blatantly American. Rounds? Perhaps. Clips had I heard used somewhere? Whatever. Sheer deadly potential, waiting. Well sealed and packed, yes. Still live? How could you tell? Who knew? Who car
ed? Into the bag, very carefully. Ugh. You see! How right I had been to make sure that my disposing of the gun would cause no danger to any of my fellow men! Perhaps I should just lance each little package, to make sure the water got in? Hmm. Tough plastic, this. Thumb-proof. Need a tool. Oh well, forget it then. The cold old Thames would defuse these bullets, in no time, surely, despite all their wrappings?

  Now, what next? This fat, long, trapezoidal shape could only be the what, you know, the bit that you actually press on to your shoulder. The handle? No, no, no. The stock? But was that just with shotguns? Perhaps butt. Surely that was what the comics used to say? The Jap fell with a grunt as Sergeant Malone’s rifle butt crashed into his buck-toothed yellow face? Yes. At any rate, there it is. Into the bag, and good riddance! Soon it would all be gone for ever, and everything would be OK again.

  Just one minute, hold on.

  Feel it again, the bag. Swing it, with those weighty lumps inside.

  Well?

  Do you seriously think that when there are another two or three similar objects in the bag, each obeying its very own orbits and epicycles of momentum, that you are, as you imagined, going to be able to simply swing the whole lot smoothly out of your car and over the ledge of some bridge without even opening the door? Go on then, try it. Well? More like a bolas than a bag! Absolutely perfect for catching, careering out of control, splitting.

  OK then, several different bin bags it is.

  Oh, very clever. You must be drunk.

  We have just established, have we not, that the actual act of the dumping is the only risk? And now you intend to multiply the span of that vital instant? That sevenyear risk? Idiocy! A blatantly gratuitous upping of the odds! It must be a single clean act of dumping.

  And that, it was now clear, could only mean one thing.

  It was quite obvious that, whether I wanted to or not, I had to put the gun together.