by Joan Fleming
He walked a mile and a bit back to the underground car-park; someone else was serving petrol tonight, they could always replace him! This character was a Pakistani who had rolled himself up comfortably against one of the pumps and was asleep.
He threaded his way between the cars in the damp and dripping cavern, found the Rover and drove through the park and out by the north gate and into the Edgware Road; he drove savagely, almost as though he were hoping for an accident; he drove out to the M1 and greatly relieved his feelings by standing on the accelerator, keeping it at a steady 90 mph. for nearly a hundred miles. When he shot off that highway into the comparatively country lane he slowed down, spent and flaccid. He looked for an all-night caff and found one.
Why did he bother with any of them, he asked himself, when he had wrapped himself round two plates of bangers and mash. Why bother? What on earth was it that held him to Fiery Beacon and the proximity of his parents? Why could he not just hop it for good and all, starting up afresh in, say, down-under? With his brains and his capital he could be living excellently and start again with a new name and a new habitat. Why bother?
The answer was that people were necessary for him; he had to show them. It wasn’t the same, showing a lot of new people who didn’t know him “from Adam”; it had to be the people who knew him, to make the impressing of them worth while. He tried telling himself that he never wanted to see that Frances Smith again, but it was only trying to kid himself. Though he hadn’t known her above a week she was now the most important thing in his life. It wasn’t that he was in love with her, or any of that kind of thing, it was just …
And where was Joe Bogey? Why did Joe have to branch out on his own and suddenly disappear just when it was important to have him near; was he simply scared stiff about being implicated in the Kensington robbery? And in hiding? Up to this he had never thought Joe a coward but now it seemed he was, after all. To simply opt out of everything at this stage was a disgusting, contemptible thing to do. Oh, it made him sick! If Joe was around he wouldn’t half punish him!
However, Frances Smith was the most exciting, in fact the only exciting and interesting thing that had hit him for a very long time. Of course, he loathed the upper classes, that went without saying, but obviously they couldn’t be done without; if there had been no upper classes how could he have made any capital at all? They certainly had their uses and he, Sledge, must keep that firmly in mind. This Frances Smith project of his was the only thing he had in mind at the moment and he decided that it must be worth following up. Its main attraction was that it made a change, therefore it was not boring yet. There were other, indefinable attractions …
There had been no trouble at all getting the girl talking on their first meeting; but she had clammed up rapidly; somewhere down by the river at Maidenhead, something had caused her to take against him; her manner had changed, she had become standoffish. As he had driven back he had burned with anger and that was why he had been so utterly stupid as to snatch her baggage. It wasn’t greed or trying to be clever or anything like that; it was just that he was angry with her for not turning out the way he had hoped, that was it.
She had confided in him to begin with, up to a point. Where she had left off was over the practical details. It was all very well telling him she had run away from home because she didn’t like her father or the man he had chosen for her to marry, but where did that get you? It may only have been that she enjoyed telling a colourful story. There had been details about her father and all that but she had been careful not to mention the name of the place or the name of the father.
There might be plenty of enjoyment to be had if he only knew these details. He could go on there now, for instance, arriving as the old gentleman was having his breakfast, with good news about his daughter; in his anxiety about her welfare the old chap would fork out some reward, that was for sure. Sledge felt a burst of warmth and friendliness for this old gent. He would, of course, for choice, not turn up in his snazzi-pants courting outfit, soiled after last night’s manhandling, but who would take exception to luminous trousers when the welfare of a beautiful young daughter was at stake?
Thus a plan was formulated. Frances must be forced to tell him the necessary details, must be locked up until she did so, if she would not do so straightaway. If anyone interfered with the carrying out of this plan they would have to be wiped out, since it was so amazingly easy to get rid of nuisances, people who stuck their necks out or got in the way. Quite amazingly easy!
Sledge ambled back to London, thinking over his plans with enjoyment; he was so slow, in fact, that he was mixed up with the commuter traffic, the last thirty miles being solid with cars. He had breakfast and a fill-up with petrol and oil in a motorway restaurant and on his way back into town, at one of those rows of shops along the suburban highway, he saw an ironmonger’s; he went in and bought two stout bolts.
Back at Fiery Beacon, safe home, he was looking for a bradawl when the police came.
“Here again?” he said pleasantly as they showed him their search warrant. The fatheads! No, Sledge knew a lot more about search warrant activities than they did. Why did they bother? They never found anything of interest, that is, in the homes of anyone who was anything more than a half-wit! But they went on searching as a matter of convention. It pleased him that he should have left the flat so clean; he turned on the radio whilst they were at the job, cleaning his nails sedulously as he sat astride an arm of one of the overstuffed chairs in the living-room. They had a careful examination of the edges of the close-fitted carpets in every room, including (luxurious touch) the close-carpeted bathroom. It was insulting, reelly, the way they examined his clothes hanging in the fitted cupboard in the bedroom, but he supposed it had to be. Routine.
He tried not to think about the brown carrier-bag he had left with the Bogeys; it didn’t do to get yourself scared at a time like this. They were thorough, though, they opened things like the tin of cocoa in the kitchen cupboard, knowing all about the cocoa-covered rolls of notes that could be found in such places. They took the dynamic pictures that he and Amrita had chosen together off the walls and examined the backs to see if they had been recently removed. They examined the bath panel, unscrewing the side and looking carefully under and behind the bath. In places that looked suspicious they ripped up the carpet; he was uneasy when they pulled out the bed, but of course he had been extremely careful about hammering those tacks home, and there wasn’t a good light, either.
It was all done wordlessly; well, if they weren’t going to talk, neither would he. He made himself comfortable, studying a motoring magazine. He knew a number of chaps who had had police searches in their flats or houses. It didn’t mean much.
He couldn’t make up his mind about the Bogeys, there were times when he knew they must go to the police with what information they had and there were other times, such as now, when he was quite certain they wouldn’t; if he were implicated it followed that Joe would be; they were in this together, he often reminded himself; however casual Joe’s involvement had been, they were in it together.
Joe and his pizza bar!
Apart from Joe, whose absence rankled more than somewhat, he felt pretty satisfied when the police had left. It was partly a matter of keeping your head; you couldn’t help but win if you kept steady. Many people, for instance, would have been scared stiff by the police warrant, you had to keep steady; part of the object of the search was to make you lose your head, panic. He couldn’t be nervous, he reminded himself, because he didn’t feel in the least sick.
In the absence of anyone to talk to he decided to go to the receiver in Walham Green and try to find out how matters stood. What did he mean by “stood”? He did not know, nor would he ever have admitted to himself that he was uneasy; any excuse for talking, even to the receiver, was better than none. He brought out of his pocket the entrancing snuff-box or comfit box which he had stolen along with the other things from that wretched Mrs., sorry, Lady, Bellhanger. The ti
ger’s tooth; he stared at it in the palm of his hand. He did not really want to part with it, he pressed it to his lips, kissing it: it would take the place of the caste-mark on Amrita’s forehead which he used to kiss for luck: it was now his talisman. A strange, yellow, weirdly dirty object, it had immense appeal, redolent, as it was, of decadent Maharajahs, though perhaps not so decadent if the Maharajah happened to have killed its owner himself. The space for snuff at the root of the tooth was scarcely big enough for two of the smallest fingers, however, perhaps the Maharajah used it for tiny pep pills instead.
Mid-morning was not a good time to visit receivers unannounced; he might find him washing up for his wife, out shopping with a string bag or sitting in the local pub; though receivers are immensely powerful during the hours of darkness, in daylight they can be quite ordinary old gentlemen shuffling about their deadly respectable suburbs with nothing more in mind than they have in hand, their wives’ shopping lists.
This particular one was doing his football pools at the kitchen table, no wife being present. W. Sledge tapped playfully upon the kitchen window and he looked up from his work, frowning when he saw who it was. He got up, however, and opened the back door. “What do you want?” he growled ungraciously.
W. Sledge assumed a look of one about to spring a delightful surprise, he edged himself past the portly figure of the receiver, into the warm kitchen, and, bringing the tiger’s tooth out of his pocket he put it down on the kitchen table with appropriate ceremony. The receiver simply could not help himself, his hand shot out and he brought his magnifying lens out of the inside of his pullover, where it hung on a narrow cord, fitted it into his eye, and looked at the tiger’s tooth closely. “How much?” he grunted at last.
“Two fifty,” W. Sledge replied, adding, “to you!”
“Don’t be ridicullus!” But it was an immensely saleable object and they both knew it.
“It’s got everything,” W. Sledge boasted, “luxury, violence …”
“Go on, say it, sex …”
“It wouldn’t be in the window more than ten minutes in Old Bond Street!”
“But two fifty, you’re joking!” The receiver made as though to return to his football pools. “You got no right to come without telephoning, you know it’s against the rules …”
“But with a gem like this …”
“And there’s other things is against the rules, if you don’t mind me reminding you …” the receiver turned and gave him a long, indignant stare. “What about no violence, eh?”
“I don’t know what you’re going on about …” The tiger’s tooth was now lying on the table. W. Sledge picked it up but held it delicately between his fingers, so that the receiver could still feast his eyes upon it.
“You do, all right, all right, that Lady Bellhanger …” the receiver evidently took sudden fright, remembering. “Go on, now, get out, will you? I don’t have no truck with your kind, you know that.”
“My kind!” W. Sledge exclaimed, astonished.
“Now look,” the receiver said soberly, “I’ve always got the police comin’ along: do I recognise this crest, have I ever seen that nutmeg grater or wine label? Sometimes I ’ave and sometimes I ’aven’t. That’s the way it works. I would hop it if I was you, you must be off your nut bringing me this thing, do you want to get yourself locked up? Or is it you’ve got to show off?”
“That doesn’t mean a thing to me,” W. Sledge boasted, “you’ve known me a long time and you know I never resorts to violence, never!”
“Excep’ when you do.”
“So you don’t want this?” Sledge was gently tossing it in the palm of his hand.
“Not at your price, I don’t!” But there was a recognisable note of regret in his voice.
“Okay, then, I’ll be off.”
“You do just that,” the receiver advised. “And, in any case, just remember, I don’t want to do no more business with you. I don’t have nothing to do with robbery with violence, I’ve said that often enough; you should have got it into your head by now, whatever colour of hair you settle for!” But he couldn’t resist adding: “A hundred quid for the old yellow tooth, and that’s it.”
W. Sledge made a hideous sound denoting sarcastic laughter. “Ta ra then!” He caused the Rover to put on a real spurt as he left Walham Green.
He had to wait some time to see Madame Joan and by the time she saw him her extra-sensory perception was full steam ahead, working to capacity. She refrained from comment on his black hair but she said at once that he had better take that nasty thing out of his pocket before she even started. Not in the least surprised, W. Sledge put the trophy down on the table in front of her.
“Not there!” she screamed, “over there on the window-sill, where we can’t see it!”
Smiling knowingly W. Sledge did as he was told, then sat down and laid his hands out before her.
“What do you want me to tell you now?” she asked. “I’ve told you all I know.”
“Tell me what to do next?” he begged.
“You can’t expect me to advise you …” she said with distaste.
“What are you here for then?” he answered nastily.
Glaring at him she picked up his hands. She told him: “These are the worst hands I’ve seen for a very long time …” She would never overstep the bounds of her professional discretion and tell him exactly what she knew about his hands and, in fact, she was frightened of him; who knew but what he might strangle her if he took a dislike to her?
She assumed her professional manner saying that she observed he had been “crossed in love” since his last visit. “Things are not working out for you,” she murmured, “I think, young man …”
“Yes?”
“Your future is …”
“Go on.”
“Fluid …” She let go of his hands and waved her own vaguely in the air as though to demonstrate what she meant.
“How do you mean?”
She looked thoughtfully at him, choosing her words. “There’s no future.”
“What?”
“I mean, there’s no future, that I can see, in what you’re doing. What about a change of occupation?”
He smiled. “You’re marvellous, ruddy marvellous. That’s just what I’d hoped you’d say. You see, I’m thinking of changing my occupation … as you say.”
“To what?” she asked, not caring in the least, in fact, thinking of something else but obliged to fill out the allotted time of the consultation.
“I thought that was where you might advise me; I’d like to do somethink abroad, I’m sick of this country; bad weather all the time, too many folk around, boring.”
“Then go to Australia, dear, I should. Lovely warm weather all the time and no taxes to speak of; yes, that’s where I would go, if I had no ties.”
“That’s it,” he returned enthusiastically, “I thought you’d have something bright to say. Can you see me in Australia?”
“Oh yes, I can; that’s where they used to send all our criminals … I mean, they don’t now, of course; but what a delightful place to send a rotten bad man to, eh?” she laughed nervously, very much wishing he would go.
“That’s it then,” he decided, “I’ll go round to the travel agency straight away.”
“Emigration office would be best,” she said, unobtrusively pressing the little bell fixed under her table top, a message to her “receptionist” to show the client out. As the remarkable-looking girl, her primrose hair piled up into a wobbly tower, showed him out he turned and waved his cheerful thanks to Madame Joan who muttered: “Except that he’ll never get there!” but replied so that he could hear: “Anytime, anytime … ta ta!”
She knew perfectly well that he had left his bejewelled trinket on the window-sill but she ignored it as she went towards the kitchen, saying that she hoped her dinner was ready; she was “famished”; an onset of extra-sensory perception, such as she had had this morning, always left her extremely hungry.
&nbs
p; W. Sledge felt hungry too and what better means could he have of satisfying it cheaply than going into the pizza bar downstairs? It was crowded but he found a table, and to his surprise he saw that Miss Frances Smith was on duty, the rota having evidently been changed, and that Silas d’Ambrose was lounging against the bar smoking a fancy cigarette, evidently making some entries into his account book. Mrs. James Trelawny put her head out from behind the curtain near which Sledge was sitting and he asked, “Has there been a change of rota?”
“Yes, Mr. d’Ambrose didn’t think it suitable for the young lady to be on late shift, going home late at night, you know. Mr. d’Ambrose is making the pastry early himself—there’s a surprise for you!”
W. Sledge nodded absently; he asked the man next to him to keep his place for him and sauntered between the tables to the bar.
Frances started visibly when she saw him but tried hard to appear unmoved by giving him the cold little smile she reserved for customers: “Which kind?”
Sledge pointed to the pizza of his choice, aware that Silas was now leaning against the bar, staring at him with his usual insolent stare. Neither of them said anything and Sledge picked up his plate of food, collected his implements in their paper napkin and went back to his table. He ate slowly, then went back to the counter for another. This time he could not catch Frances’s eye. He ate the second one even more slowly; when he had finished it, nearly all the customers had left but Silas was still standing by the bar. Sledge waited, watching for a moment when his back was turned, attending to the changing of a five-pound note proffered by a customer. Then he leaned forward over the counter and hissed:
“Joe wants to see you!”
“Where is he?”
“I’ll take you to him; it’s secret; he’s hiding.”