Find My Way Home

by Mark Timlin

  It’s never a good time of the month for me I thought, but didn’t say.

  ‘Pain in the belly,’ she said.

  And the unspoken drift was that she didn’t want me poking around her insides, which, although I thought I’d never live to see the day, was a bit of a relief. I was getting to like sleeping alone. Or at least if I couldn’t sleep with Dawn, then I preferred being on my own.

  ‘Do you want to go home?’ I asked

  She shook her head. ‘I might as well be in pain here and take it out on you as at home alone. I haven’t even got a cat to kick.’

  That was more like the old Diane and we both smiled. ‘Do you want to eat or what?’ I said.

  ‘In a bit. Tell me about the case.’

  A sticky wicket again, but I told her about Robber, who she’d never met, lucky girl, appearing on the scene, and Norbert and Crazy Larry, but not the guns.

  ‘You just be careful,’ she said when I’d finished. ‘I don’t want you hurt.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I said.

  ‘And I’m hungry now.’ So we went to the restaurant.

  It was cool and quiet inside and we got placed where we could see Canary Wharf and ordered a bottle of white wine.

  ‘Not Chardonnay,’ said Diane to the waiter. ‘That’s Liebfraumilch for the nineties.’

  She was right, but then Liebfraumilch had been one of Dawn’s weaknesses, although I could never understand it. I’d been thinking about Dawn a lot over the past few days. Too much.

  The waiter brought a bottle of white Burgundy and wouldn’t leave until Diane had expressed her approval. When we’d drunk half a glass each he came back and we ordered.

  We chose chicken satay to start, and decided to share king prawns in a hot chilli sauce, soft noodles, sliced beef in red wine and mixed vegetables.

  When the waiter left we lit cigarettes and Diane said, ‘I don’t know why you put up with me.’

  ‘You make me forget.’

  ‘Forget what?’

  ‘Everything. When I’m with you I can be twenty-five with no worries. What the fuck you think when you look at me I don’t know, though.’

  ‘I see a handsome, sexy man.’

  ‘Christ, Diane. Lucky I don’t wear a hat or else I’d never get it back on.’

  ‘You love it.’

  ‘’Course I do. Who wouldn’t? But really. Why don’t you find a young geezer and go and make babies?’

  ‘I don’t want babies. I don’t even have a cat, you know that. Or want one of those either. Too much responsibility. I’m not going to turn into an old drudge changing nappies.’

  ‘You’ll be lonely in your old age.’

  ‘Let me worry about that.’

  ‘Diane,’ I said. ‘I used to say exactly the same. Everyone does when they look in the mirror and see a youthful reflection. But everything changes when you start getting old. You can argue with the tax man, but you either get old or die. You can’t odds it.’

  ‘You’re in a morbid mood.’

  ‘Another summer goes by and it catches up with me all of a sudden. Sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be,’ she said as the food was delivered to our table. ‘I’m feeling a lot better. Maybe I’ll stay at your place tonight.’

  And she did. And I didn’t mind a bit sharing the bed with her. And however hard I tried, we didn’t dislodge the guns from their hiding place under the mattress.

  Robber got round to my place at about seven that Friday evening. He came in clutching Stonehouse’s Filofax that I’d given him the previous day, with a triumphant look on his face. ‘This gets better and better,’ he said.

  ‘What?’ I asked.

  ‘This book. In amongst all his business contacts and golfing buddies is one very interesting name.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  He paused.

  ‘Well, are you going to tell me?’ I said.

  ‘Ever hear of a bloke called Tony Lambretta?’

  ‘Is this a joke?’

  ‘No. Tony Lambretta. He’s for real, believe me.’

  ‘He sounds like a motor scooter.’

  ‘Some of his family are. The motor scooter firm. Or used to be. Not him. His side of the clan came over here years ago. Just before the war. Apparently his grandad or someone had a falling out with Mussolini.’

  ‘Personally?’

  ‘So they say. Anyway, they got here without a pot to piss in and grandad set up a tailoring firm in Hackney. Quality stuff for the carriage trade in Savile Row. They did well until the war, when they got shoved over to the Isle of Man as undesirable aliens. After the war, back to Hackney and the Hoffman press. Anyway, to cut a long story short, young Tony’s dad never went into the family firm. He had other ideas. First he opened up an ice-cream firm. Got into some heavy-duty aggro with the other ice-cream geezers. They didn’t like the competition. Tony’s dad came out on top. Then mini-cabs in the sixties – the same. Hard man was Tony’s dad. And he had some family backing by then. A few more brothers who didn’t fancy spending the rest of their lives doing hand stitching on a gent’s lounge suit. Built up quite an empire, they did. Specially after the Krays went down. Mopped up a lot of their leavings in the East End. Then Tony came on board. And he was even harder than Daddy. And his name is in Stonehouse’s book.’

  ‘Could be anything. Could be from the old days, or maybe Tony likes a round of golf himself.’

  ‘Not a fucking chance. Tony wouldn’t know a golf course from a hole in the ground.’

  If that was meant to be funny I didn’t laugh.

  ‘I’m surprised you don’t know him yourself,’ said Robber.

  ‘I don’t know everybody. The East End ain’t my hangout.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Robber mused. ‘And they played the legit card before you came into the job. Pretended they’d cleaned up their act. The minicabs turned into chauffeur hire and the ice-cream vans were bounced in for the pubs and restaurants they used to run protection on. Sweet.’

  ‘So what do you reckon?’ I asked.

  ‘I reckon Tony and Harry were at it together. I reckon if we can tie in Crazy Larry to Tony Lambretta we’ve found our bullion gang.’

  ‘Let’s see what we can do, then.’

  I gave Robber the loaded nine-millimetre pistol and kept the Colt for myself, stashing it away in the pocket of my leather jacket.

  ‘How do you reckon I’m going to catch his attention?’ I said. ‘You know, there we are. Crazy Larry with the rest of the members of Street Shit, and there’s me, all on my lonesome.’

  ‘For Christ’s sake, Sharman. What did you do before I came along?’ said Robber, producing a white paper wrap from his pocket. ‘Let him have a load of this.’

  I opened it. Inside was a quantity of white powder stuck together loosely. I touched my finger to the pile, then put it on my tongue. Instant freeze-out. Coke. And good stuff by the taste of it.

  ‘There’s about half a gram there,’ he said. ‘Cost me thirty nicker, which I’m claiming back off exes. Get that to Larry and by all accounts he’ll follow you anywhere. Tell him you’ve got more in the motor and bring him outside.’

  ‘Simple as that?’

  ‘You know it’s the truth. Then we have a little chat, convince him of the error of his ways. Find out if Lambretta’s name rings any bells, and Bob’s your uncle.’

  ‘Never had an uncle Bob,’ I said. ‘Come on, let’s do it.’

  The pub was next to a stretch of dual carriageway, between two roundabouts on the main road from Croydon to Purley. Perfect for burn-ups.

  The building looked like it had been flung up after the war with its slab sides of concrete and flat roof. It was in the centre of a huge car park with a hot dog wagon on one side. The wagon was closed when we arrived, but I imagined it did good business at closing time. There were just a couple of cars in the car park, but lined up neatly like dominoes in front of the public bar entrance were nine or ten motor bikes which had been chopped into hogs.

&nb
sp; Robber parked his Sierra in a far corner close to a line of trees that backed on to a sports ground. ‘Off you go,’ he said. ‘Have fun.’

  ‘Cheers,’ I replied as I slipped the Colt into the top of my right boot and wandered over to the pub.

  I went into the saloon bar first just to get the lie of the land.

  There were only two drinkers in at that relatively early hour, and they were spaced as far apart as was humanly possible. I went to the bar and ordered a pint. There was a door to my right with a sign that read: TOILETS & PUBLIC BAR. From that direction came the beat of loud music and raised voices. I sipped at my drink, then took it with me towards the door.

  When I opened it I found myself in a short corridor. On the left was the ladies’, on the right the gents’, and straight ahead another door with BAR written on it. The sound of music and voices was louder there.

  I hesitated for a moment, wondering if a slash might not be advisable before I went in, then took my courage in one hand and my pint in the other and pushed open the door of the public bar.

  Every head inside turned as I entered, and all conversation stopped. But the jukebox kept hammering out an old heavy-metal tune that I remembered from years before. Whitesnake or Deep Purple, or someone like that.

  I walked to the bar and took a beaten-up stool at the end by the wall. I felt safer with something solid at my back. I sat round so that I could keep half an eye on the score or so of punters in there, and one by one they resumed their conversations and looked away from me.

  They were a motley crowd of bikers, their women and hangers-on. The men were stringy-haired and dirty, wearing denim and leather with a lot of silver chains and turquoise bracelets. The women wore cut-off jeans or really short skirts. The stockings of choice were fishnet, and nearly all of them, both men and women, wore heavy motor-cycle boots. I spotted Crazy Larry right away. He was sitting at a table with a dark-haired mystery who obviously held Cher as her personal fashion icon. He held a pint in a prosthetic hand that was covered in chipped scarlet paint that probably matched the colour of his eyes, which I couldn’t see for the Elvis-in-the-seventies chrome-sided shades he wore. He stood up and went over to the jukebox and I wondered why he couldn’t’ve been the shape and size of Norbert Green. Instead he was about six two with shithouse shoulders, and a big, almost bald, head with what remained of his hair slicked back on top. He was either growing a beard or just hadn’t shaved for a week, and all in all he looked as tough as last week’s sirloin left out to dry in the sun.

  He fed some change into the machine and rejoined the woman. I clocked him as he walked towards her and sat down, and even through the sunglasses I saw that he noticed.

  I kept looking, and after a moment he got up and ambled over to me. ‘What you looking at?’ he demanded.

  On his good forearm I noticed that he had a tattoo that said: ‘Born To Die’ in Gothic script. I reckon we all are, but very few of us have to have it written prominently on our bodies to remind us.

  ‘Larry?’ I said. The tune on the jukebox had changed to some other heavy metal heroes and I had to shout over the racket.

  ‘Who wants to know?’

  ‘I’m a mate of Norbert Green’s.’ Fuck the little weasel if he thought I wasn’t going to use his name.

  Larry looked at me and smashed the metal hand on the bar so that my pint jumped. No one else seemed to notice, or maybe that was usual behaviour for him. ‘What about him?’ he demanded.

  ‘He said you might be interested in some gear.’

  ‘What gear?’

  I took the wrap out of my pocket and handed it to him. I figured discretion was unnecessary in the back bar of the Deliverance.

  He opened it and did the same finger trick as I had, wedging the wrap between two of his tin fingers and using his good hand for quality control. He looked at me and pulled what I took to be a satisfied face before sticking his nose into the paper and snarfing up most of the coke with one giant sniff. He threw his head back and knocked powder from his top lip with the back of his hand, stood for a moment, then grinned a massive, shit-eating grin. ‘Good kit,’ he said. ‘How much you got?’

  ‘As much as you want.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘Sixty a gram. A discount on ten grams or more.’

  He gripped my bicep with the red hand. ‘You ain’t Old Bill by any chance, are you?’

  ‘Piss off,’ I said. ‘That’s entrapment; I’d be wasting my time. Anyway, if I was Old Bill and wanted you, I’d come in mob-handed. I’d think of something to charge you with later.’

  Crazy Larry laughed. ‘Yeah, I suppose you would. All right, mate, you got yourself a deal. Give.’

  ‘No, mate,’ I said, pulling my arm away from his grip. ‘Not here. Outside. And just you . . . and, Larry . . .’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘COD. OK?’

  As we walked out of the bar I saw Larry give one of his shady-looking mates a high sign. Bollocks, I thought. This is going to be trouble.

  We went into the car park, past the bikes and over to the Sierra. The air stank of petrol from exhausts on the main road outside.

  We got to the car and there was no sign of Robber. ‘Well?’ demanded Larry.

  ‘In the hatchback,’ I said, and suddenly flashed that I didn’t have any keys to the car. It would’ve been almost bloody funny if I hadn’t just realised that maybe that slash would’ve been a good idea after all.

  ‘Go on, then,’ he said.

  Where’s Robber? I kept thinking. Where’s Robber? Where’s bloody Robber?

  Then to put the tin lid on the whole deal, Crazy Larry reaches inside the leather jacket decorated with a sheep’s skull on the back with his good hand, and pulls out a dirty great buck knife with about a twelve-inch blade that gleamed brightly in the reflection of the pub lights.

  ‘I said do it,’ said Larry. ‘You ponce. You ain’t charging me nothin’ for nothin’.’

  And still no sign of sodding Robber.

  Here goes, I thought, and pushed down on the hatchback button, praying that the good widow had left it unlocked.

  And she had.

  And as the lid slowly lifted on its hydraulic pistons there was a scream that doubly convinced me that I should’ve emptied my bladder when I’d had the chance, and something shot out of the boot, landed on Crazy Larry’s face, knocking his Elvis shades to the ground, dug its claws into his throat and scalp, and ripped skin like tissue paper.

  Larry screamed and dropped the knife, and the cat flew off Larry and headed for the trees and some sanity.

  Larry put his hands to his face and wiped blood out of his eyes as Robber walked out from the shadows holding the gun in his right hand, and a cigarette in his mouth. ‘Stay where you are, Larry,’ he said.

  I looked round, spotted the knife and picked it up. ‘Where the fuck have you been?’ I said.

  ‘Watching.’

  ‘Fucking great,’ I said. ‘This fucker had a sodding knife in me, and you’re watching.’

  ‘You’ve got a gun, ain’t you?’ said Robber. ‘Anyhow, I’ve got faith in your abilities.’

  Larry was looking from the gun to Robber’s face and back, and blood was dripping from his chin on to his T-shirt. ‘Who the fuck are you?’ he said to Robber. He wasn’t quite so tough now.

  ‘Your worst nightmare,’ replied Robber. ‘An ex-copper with a shooter who’s prepared to use it on scum like you. Now get in the car.’

  As he spoke the door to the public bar burst open and the rest of the gang bundled through. Larry smiled through the blood.

  ‘Inside,’ said Robber, the cigarette bobbing up and down in his mouth.

  I took out my Colt from my boot and stuck it in Larry’s side, pulling back the hammer as I did it. ‘Do it, son,’ I said.

  ‘OK,’ he said. ‘OK. They’ll catch you in a second in this heap.’

  Some of the gang were only a hundred yards or so away from us when I shoved Larry into the back and piled in after him.
‘Come on,’ I said to Robber.

  ‘OK,’ he said and spat out the cigarette. A tiny flame glowed where the dog end lay on the tarmac, then spread and rushed across the surface of the car park and over the bikes all neatly parked in a row and then began to take hold.

  ‘Fuck,’ I said as Robber calmly got into the car and started the engine. The bikes were really going by then, and all our pursuers had turned back to try and save the machines.

  ‘You bastard,’ said Larry, and made to dive over the front seat on to Robber’s back.

  I clubbed him round the nose with my pistol. ‘Sorry, Larry,’ I said. ‘But you were going to knife me.’

  There was a petrol can in the passenger well of the motor, next to Robber. So it hadn’t been exhaust I’d smelt when we came out of the boozer. ‘Good trick,’ I said. ‘With the petrol. I’ve used that.’

  ‘Piece of piss.’

  ‘Tiddles done a runner, by the way,’ I said.

  ‘Never mind. It weren’t her cat.’

  ‘No wonder this thing stinks so bad,’ I said. ‘Did you know it was living in the back?’

  ‘Didn’t have a clue. Saved your skin, though, didn’t it?’

  ‘Which was your job,’ I said.

  ‘I was fixing the bikes. You can’t have everything.’

  ‘Where are we going?’ said Larry suddenly. Blood from his nose was joining the blood from his face dripping down his front, and when he spoke, in the light from an approaching car’s headlights I saw a big bubble of blood form on his lips, then burst.

  ‘Somewhere quiet,’ said Robber. ‘This’ll do.’

  He’d headed away from Croydon and taken a B-road off the first roundabout, and suddenly we were in one of those bits of countryside that you can still find in the very outer ring of suburbia.

  On our left was a quiet turning and Robber spun the car into it, ran up about a quarter of a mile until we came to a turnaround with no houses visible, pulled on to the verge and stopped.

  He switched off the engine and wound down his window. The night was very quiet outside.