by Colin Murray
‘All right,’ I said, ‘I’m going to make it easy for you. You don’t have to say a thing, and you can honestly say that we got nothing out of you.’ I paused and he looked up at me, genuine puzzlement on his face. ‘I’ll tell you who it is. If I’m right, don’t make a sound. If I’m wrong, cough. Understand?’
He nodded.
‘It’s a young and attractive woman called Beverley Beaumont. She’s a film actress and your boss is taking her somewhere safe because he has some idea that Jonathan Harrison will return the diamonds he, er, mislaid in return for Miss Beaumont.’
Ray didn’t make a sound.
Of course, the flaw in my reasoning was that I had to assume that he knew what was going on and that his silence meant that I’d guessed correctly. Neither assumption could be relied on. Unfortunately, I didn’t have much else going for me.
Charlie and Bert had appeared in the corridor while I’d been talking.
‘What’s the score, Tone?’ Charlie said.
‘I’m not sure,’ I said. ‘Things are not quite as simple as they were ten minutes ago, and they weren’t simple then.’ I looked at Ray. ‘Where’s the club? Is it the one in St James’s?’
He nodded.
‘When is Bert going to be picked up?’
‘The boss said to get him there for half four,’ Ray said.
I released my grip and looked at my watch. It was five and twenty past three. How time flew when you were having fun. My stomach rumbled.
Ray smoothed out the creases and rumples in his jacket and brushed it down. Then he slumped against the wall.
‘Were you supposed to call in, saying if you’d found him or anything?’
‘Leave a message with the club doorman.’
I looked at Bert. ‘Is there a telephone here we can use?’ I said.
‘There’s one in the office,’ he said, looking unhappy.
I grabbed Ray again and marched him up the stairs to the gym, with Charlie, Bert and Emile following on. Everyone except Emile looked glum. But then Emile didn’t know what was going on.
The boys had disappeared, presumably into the changing room.
The office was surprisingly tidy. The big old telephone sat on it solidly, its thick brown cord hanging down off the edge like a schoolgirl’s lank and dull plait. Apart from that and an empty wire tray, there were only a few pencils and a pad.
I asked Ray for the number of the club and dialled. I left a message with the same curt doorman I’d met a few nights before. I just said that the message was from Ray for Mr Jenkins and that Bert couldn’t make it by half four. Could he call the gym and tell Bert where to meet him?
I then yelled to Charlie, who was waiting outside the door, and told him to keep an eye on Ray, who I sent out to him.
I sat on the desk, staring at the big, wooden filing cabinet, wondering how many boys’ dreams of fame and fortune in the ring were turning yellow with age inside.
I waited for ten minutes for a call and then went out into the gym.
Ray was looking worried. Charlie was holding his arm tightly, and Emile was standing by the door, his hand in his jacket pocket, a grim smile on his face.
I stood there for a minute, considering the sense of what I was about to do. Since the alternative would lead either to an appearance in court or to digging a hole in Epping Forest and stuffing him in it – and possibly both – I decided that I didn’t have a lot of choice. After all, I was supposed to be the good guy here.
‘All right,’ I said to Ray, ‘you’d better be off. I’d stick to a simple story if I were you. You saw Bert, he couldn’t get away immediately and leave it at that.’ I paused to let it sink in that he could go. ‘If you don’t stick to that you’ll find yourself in big trouble with your boss. Worse, you’ll be in even bigger trouble with me.’ I took Charlie’s hand from his arm and pushed him towards the door.
I called to Emile in French. ‘Escort our friend down to the street. See if there’s anyone waiting for him in a car. If there is, don’t do anything. Just come back up and tell me.’
He nodded. He was used to doing what Robert told him.
As Ray left the gym and we heard the two of them clatter down the stairs, I turned to Charlie. ‘Do you know how to get to Cambridge?’ I said.
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Why?’
‘I’ve decided against Mile End,’ I said. ‘I thought we could all do with some country air.’
TWENTY-TWO
I’m not much of a one for the country. I’m a Londoner, and Londoners don’t go there.
Not even on holiday. We go to the seaside: Southend, Clacton, Ramsgate or, sometimes, the most intrepid of us venture as far as Lowestoft and Great Yarmouth. You don’t get cockles and whelks in the country.
During the war, youngsters, and sometimes their mothers, were evacuated to places like Bicester (which isn’t pronounced how it looks, apparently, and rhymes with sister – but that’s the country for you) and treated like skivvies on cold, wet, mucky, smelly farms. It was, for some, a scarring experience. For a few, it was so bad they hopped on the first bus back, preferring to take their chances with Goering’s Luftwaffe.
I can sympathize with that. My mother took me to a place called Wickford when I was a nipper. I suppose she thought it would be a nice day out. It was market day, and I saw my first pig. It was black and enormous, had long, vicious-looking bristles on its backside and emitted the appalling noise that Grand-père made when he fell asleep after Sunday dinner and too much beer. I’ve never forgotten that pig’s backside.
Going to the Hollow Ponds to fish for sticklebacks with a length of twine and a safety pin or to High Beech (where Dick Turpin is supposed to have had his hideout) to pick blackberries doesn’t count. That’s Epping Forest and is always full of Londoners.
I know that it’s a bit of a joke, but it’s true all the same. The country scares Londoners. The noises are unfamiliar and unpredictable. The rain is constant, and city shoes aren’t built to cope with bogs. Anyway, I had a bellyful of cows, pigs, wet fields and small-minded country people during the war. There was commando training out in somewhere remote, cold, very damp and in Scotland. And then there was France.
All the same, I have to admit that the drive up through the Essex countryside that balmy April evening touched something and gave me that odd, joy-mixed-with-sadness feeling that I suppose translates as cheap sentiment.
As the sun went down on our left and smeared the big sky a deep red, for some reason a jaunty record that my mother had had sent over from France before the war kept buzzing around my head. I couldn’t remember many of the words, just something about when our hearts go boum! it is love that is waking up. I think there was a lot of stuff about turkeys and birds on a lake and deer as well, all making pleasant noises. Clearly, the song had been written by a Parisien who had, with the unerring ability of the most popular of lyric writers, homed in on every city dweller’s misty-eyed view of the countryside, seeing it as a larger version of the Bois de Boulogne, without les putains and les pédés, of course. Still, the chirpy melody cheered me up.
Emile had taken what had become his usual seat, riding shotgun, sitting in the front, next to Charlie, so Bert slumped next to me, snoring energetically. Evidently, the country had no appeal for him. It was something best slept through. The steady rhythm of his breathing reminded me a little of that pig in Wickford.
Emile suddenly turned and asked me if there was a chalet de nécessité near. I laughed, partly because we were in the middle of nowhere and partly because I’d always thought that my mother had invented the term to protect our modesties. Emile, however, obviously thought that I was mocking him and looked hurt. I told Charlie to pull over and explained to Emile that we could all probably do with going and that there were enough trees around for us all to have our own personal pissoir. He looked at the field that Charlie had stopped by and a little frown of worry creased his forehead. Which made me laugh again. A Parisien who wouldn’t think twice about pissin
g against a wall not far from a bustling boulevard was concerned about urinating in an empty field.
As we hauled ourselves out of the car, Charlie jerked a thumb up the road. ‘Not far now, Tone,’ he said, yawning and rolling his shoulders.
I nodded and strolled through the old gate that Emile had opened, down the little rise and into the field.
The low sun was warm on my back as I stood and peed against a giant conker tree, and it threw a long, dark, distorted shadow across the grass. The conker tree is one of the only two or three I can recognize. There’s the oak, of course; the copper beech, when it’s in leaf; and the sycamore because of the strange whirling seeds that drop from it. Oh, and the monkey puzzler. That’s five, so maybe I’ve soaked up more country lore than I’d imagined. I could probably have a stab at spotting a silver birch. On the other hand, apart from pigeons, sparrows, starlings and seagulls, birds are a mystery to me.
The back of my head was still sore and so was my knee, but the sun felt good. And the air smelt clean, although it hinted at compost and cow pats. I felt like lying down and snoozing for half an hour.
I looked across at the others. We’d all discreetly chosen our very own tree. The field was fringed with nine or ten. On my left, Bert was fiddling with his fly with one hand, rummaging around as though unpacking a large trout, and holding his brown trilby in the other. Beyond him I could see a few black and white cows eyeing us balefully.
A dowdy, brown-coloured butterfly with glossy black spots on its wings fluttered around, and a small cloud of gnats gathered under the branches just above me. A couple of nondescript, black, shadowy birds drifted across the blue sky. It was very peaceful and pleasant. It’s amazing what a little sun – and a complete absence of pigs – can do for the countryside. I turned my attention back to the gnarly old bark of the tree and concentrated on emptying my bladder.
I didn’t even miss the sound of the traffic. But, then, there was a car passing at that very moment.
It can’t have been the first vehicle to have rumbled past, but I noticed this one – and as it roared by, just out of sight on the other side of the trees and the thick hedge, it re-awoke the sense of urgency that the balmy evening had so effectively dissipated.
I didn’t have much of a plan, and most of it – well, all of it, really – consisted of beating Jenkins and his boys to our destination and surprising them. Always assuming I’d guessed right, of course.
Charlie was leaning contentedly on the gate, and Emile had just finished lighting a cigarette and was sucking the smoke deep into his lungs. He flicked the match casually to the ground. Bert was still peeing in little fits and starts.
I rebuttoned my fly and was starting to amble back towards the gate when I was suddenly aware that the car that had just passed us had stopped a little way up the road and the engine note had changed to the higher-pitched whine of a vehicle reversing.
Of course! It was the bloody Roller! Instantly recognizable! I remembered Jenkins taking a long, hard look at us when we’d been parked in St James’s Street.
I yelled a quick and incoherent warning to Charlie and Emile and started to run. Even if Emile hadn’t understood, he was a bright boy. He’d get the gist.
Bert looked puzzled as I dashed past him, but I didn’t bother to explain. He was one of them, really. He could look after himself.
The rutted ground was treacherous in my thin-soled city shoes, and I risked a turned ankle with every step, but it was no worse than most football pitches after a January freeze and at least the recent spell of fine weather meant that no mud sucked at my feet.
I heard a commotion behind me and thought there may have been a shot. I risked a quick look back and saw Charlie and Emile running off in the opposite direction – Emile way out in front – with a bloke following in a half-hearted sort of way. One man, unmistakably Jenkins, was standing, arms folded, by the gate, waiting for Bert to amble across to him. Alfred, again unmistakable in his white sling, stood slightly in front of him, levelling a pistol with his uninjured arm. They must have quite some armoury somewhere because Robert had disarmed everyone the night before and I didn’t recall him handing the weapons back when they’d said their good nights and slunk away. Given how far Emile was away, Alfred would have to be a first-class shot – or very, very lucky – to hit anyone at that distance. It rather looked as if he was neither. Unfortunately, I couldn’t stick around to find out. The would-be tough who I’d tangled with earlier in the day was coming after me, and he was moving fast. Perhaps he thought he had something to prove. Just because I’d dealt with him twice before didn’t mean I’d manage it successfully this time.
Still, one against one was promising.
I was aiming for a small copse about sixty or yards further on. I had some idea of circling around and outflanking our attackers but, first, I’d have to deal with young Ray. And he, too, was armed. I became aware of that because he fired two shots at me in quick succession. One howled harmlessly past, hopelessly wide, but the other was much too close for comfort. He was probably a lousy marksman who had got a bit lucky, but even so I pumped my arms faster and zigged and zagged.
I pounded on, breathing hard, wishing I hadn’t missed quite so many football training sessions, but I made the cover of the little wood easily and without the searing pain of either a bullet or a stitch. I stopped to regain my breath and then I bent over and peered through the delicately trembling little trees, which were certainly how I imagined silver birches to be. Ray was only a few seconds behind me, and so I quickly plunged into a thicker part of the wood and ducked behind a large old oak, pressing my back against the rough, furrowed bark.
I heard him enter the wood. Only a deaf man wouldn’t have. He was wheezing badly, and dry sticks were cracking under his feet. To be fair, I already knew he was chasing me, so even complete silence wouldn’t have helped him.
I hunkered down at the base of the tree and waited. I was grinning, and I realized that I was looking forward to this. It wasn’t the violence, I told myself. It was the excitement, the awareness of everything around me, the feeling of being really alive and relishing it. I sniffed the air and fancied I could smell the stale cigarette smoke on his clothes, the brilliantine in his hair, the Lifebuoy soap on his skin. I grinned again and listened.
He was treading more cautiously now, warily, and he was very close.
As he came abreast of the tree, to my right, I moved slowly, carefully and, above all, silently, to my left, keeping the tree between us. When I was sure that I was behind him, I stood up and risked a look.
He was standing about four yards away, the gun in his right hand, extended in front of him. His hand was shaking noticeably.
Two strides took me right up to him, and I punched him twice in the small of the back. He grunted and sprawled forward on to the damp earth with a soft oof as the air left him, and I didn’t muck about. I kicked him in the side and then leaned down and hit him once behind the ear. He lay there, moaning.
Not third time lucky then, Ray, I thought. If I felt any guilt at all, it left me when I saw the sleek, black pistol that he’d dropped. I had no doubt that he would have used it if I’d given him the chance.
Quickly, while he was still more or less out of it, I pulled his jacket down over his arms, took off his braces and used them to tie his wrists to his ankles. It wouldn’t incapacitate him for ever, but it would keep him occupied long enough. I rummaged in his pocket and found an old snot rag and forced it into his mouth. Then I retrieved his gun and pocketed it. It was a Luger – a memento from the war, I imagined. I’d come across them often enough, but I’d never used one – and so I wasn’t sure I’d be able to start now – but it might come in handy as a frightener.
Leaving Ray there, coming to and struggling already, his coughing and spluttering muted by the handkerchief, I turned sharp right, back towards the road, carefully walking through the dense undergrowth, which threatened the legs of my trousers, my last decent pair, until I came to the f
ence.
I peered out of the trees and along the shadowed road.
There wasn’t all that much to see. The Humber that I’d become quite familiar with was parked about thirty or forty yards in front of the Roller, which was just visible beyond it. But standing next to the Humber, his back to me, watching the fence and the field, was Jan. I’d wondered if he was around. It must have been ‘intime’ in the Humber.
As I climbed over the fence, the bellowed instructions of one of the Special Ops instructors up in ’arry’s egg, as the Poles and the French on the same commando course called the place, came to me: ‘Use the available cover, you tosser!’ I doubt that he had a grey Humber in mind when he offered that advice – he leaned more towards wet, muddy depressions in the landscape and viciously barbed brambles – but that was what I had.
I crossed the road, putting the car between me and the Belgian and, stooping, I closed the gap between us as swiftly and quietly as I could.
Jan must have heard something as I reached the car because he started to turn to his right, away from me and looked back towards the wood.
My old instructor would have been proud of me. It was straight out of the manual. I stopped, hunkered down for a few seconds and then, still crouching, I awkwardly waddled along the few feet of road to the car door.
Then I lifted my head enough to look at Jan through the driver’s window.
He peered towards the little wood for a few seconds and then sniffed, spat on the grass verge and turned back towards the gate.
I worked my way back around the bonnet of the car and stepped out behind him.
One of the other things that tough, old instructor used to bark at us was, ‘Don’t piss about. Just do it.’
It was sound advice and, as with Ray a few minutes before, I followed it.
Jan wasn’t wearing a hat, and I hit him hard enough with the butt of the gun to crack his skull. Certainly, it was hard enough to dislodge his spectacles, and they hit the ground before he did. He went down with no more than a gentle sigh, and he stayed down. He twitched once or twice, but he was out.