by M T McGuire
“Stop him!” came shouts from below and yet more police took off in hot pursuit.
“There are ...” he stopped to count them, “fifteen police snurds behind us,” shouted Big Merv in incandescent rage. “Do something or I’ll kill you.”
“If you kill me, you’ll die,” replied The Pan, “so I suggest you shut up, sit tight and enjoy the ride.”
Blimey! Where had that come from? Even the most favoured of Big Merv’s henchmen wouldn’t have dared to speak to him like that. The Pan had surprised himself, but chases like this were about the only times he felt anything approaching confidence. When it came to running away he was sure of his talent, calm and in control.
Yep. He wasn’t going to be fazed by a little thing like telling the toughest, most short-tempered gangland boss in Ning Dang Po to shut up – not until afterwards, anyway. He’d clearly surprised Big Merv, too. So much so that he did as he was told.
As they flew out over the city the streets began to change from the wide, tree-lined avenues of the West End to the narrow winding streets of the East.
Ah yes, the Goojan Quarter, the oldest and most closely packed part of town and the escapee’s paradise. The Pan put the snurd into a dive. As they flew, sideways, down one of its many three-foot-wide streets there was a loud clunk as one of the Grongle drivers misjudged the width of his vehicle and piloted it at high speed into the side of a grade one listed building. The Pan accelerated and they sped off. Big Merv had one hand over his eyes while the other, white knuckled, gripped the dash.
“Here. Take this,” said The Pan, opening the glove compartment and pulling out a plastic bag.
“Arnold’s Y-fronts! Keep your hands on the wheel,” shouted Big Merv, but to The Pan’s amazement he also thanked him.
Twenty minutes later, after a series of stomach-churning evasive manoeuvres which had caused the other fourteen Grongle snurds to fly into walls, trees, bridges and in one memorable instance, the funnel of an ocean-going liner, there were a lot of dazed Grongolian policemen in Ning Dang Po and no sign of the silver snurd they had been chasing.
The Pan could see Frank and Harry waiting as he landed the SE2 gently on the quayside. He switched off the ignition, climbed, trembling, out of the driver’s door, jumped over the bonnet and held the passenger door open for Big Merv. If it hadn’t been an inanimate object the casual observer might have sworn that The Pan had only reached the other side of the snurd in one piece because it had ducked. He opened the passenger door with a flourish. Frank and Harry watched him expressionlessly, but gave him the impression that, in their view, his new-found confidence didn’t bode well.
Big Merv climbed out. He hadn’t used the plastic bag but he was pale and obviously feeling very queasy. During the escape, he had told The Pan that Hal had never driven like that, but since Hal would never have escaped from such a scenario, he would allow a bit of leeway. He staggered away from the snurd and perched himself on a nearby bollard. He was sweating and his legs were shaky.
“Never, in all my born days, have I been chauffeured like that,” he said.
“You alright guv?” asked Frank.
“Yeh,” he put one hand on Harry’s shoulder. “You ain’t gonna believe what just happened boys.” He shook his head, “Arnold! I wouldn’t believe it myself if I hadn’t seen it with me own eyes.”
“Do we waste ’im then?” asked Frank.
“You gotta be kidding. That snivelling, conniving, little nerk,” he waved a hand in The Pan’s general direction, “he’s only gone and outrun fifteen police snurds from a standin’ start.”
There was a respectful silence. As a feat, it was unheard of. Neither Hal nor the other seasoned pros driving for the Resistance had ever done that. Big Merv chuckled to himself. “By The Prophet’s pants, that was a gas! I’d laugh if I didn’t feel so blummin’ sick.”
“Do we chuck him in the river, then?” asked Harry.
“No,” said Big Merv emphatically (much to The Pan’s relief), “we’re sitting on a gold mine here boys. We’re going back to our roots,” he rubbed his hands together, “we’re gonna rob banks. We’ll need the MK II fitted with tinted glass.”
“Uh?” said Harry, “how?”
“Go to Snurd and get ’em to effin’ fit it, that’s how.”
“Nah, I meant how’re we gonna rob banks?”
“Yeh,” said Frank, “’s like you’re thinkin’ he’s gonna drive.”
“He is,” beamed Merv, nodding in The Pan’s direction, “Hal didn’t ’ave nothin’ on him.”
A long silence fell while The Pan watched Harry and Frank stare from Big Merv to him and back, several times, in pained disbelief, clearly wondering how he could have achieved such a radical shift in outlook.
“But Hal were a good bloke,” said Harry.
“Yeh,” said Frank, “we liked Hal.”
“And you’ll like ’im,” said Merv. An order, definitely.
“I get it,” said Harry nervously, “you’re joshing us, right?”
“No,” said Big Merv firmly, “we rob, he drives.”
“But he torched an entire block,” said Frank.
“An’ you can’t trust him. He said he’s been on the blacklist for four years,” said Harry. “That’s a lie for starters, innit? The whole world knows yer usual GBI makes three months at the outside.”
“Yeh ’cept that bloke wot did a year,” Frank chipped in, “an’ that was only coz he was in the nuthouse for ’alf of it.”
“He ain’t lyin’,” said Big Merv, “the Grongle who stopped us confirmed it.”
“But he’s yellower than a bowl of custard,” said Frank.
“Too right, mate,” said Merv proudly, “that’s why he’s so damn good.”
“What about the concrete—” began Harry, with a mournful look at the box in which The Pan had originally been standing.
“Are you listening to me?” asked Big Merv, “I said we rob, he drives and if you don’t like it, you can chuck yourselves in the effing river – or perhaps you’d like me to do it?”
Big Merv’s tone of voice had acquired a dangerous edge and, huddled under their respective umbrellas, Frank and Harry ceased to put up any more argument. As The Pan watched them, they shifted uncomfortably from one foot to another and nodded.
“Yes boss,” they said.
“I want him and the MK II at my place tomorrow afternoon two o’clock sharp, with those tinted windows in place. Got it?”
“Yes boss.”
“Good,” said Big Merv. The Pan couldn’t help noticing that it was hardly tomorrow so much as today. The sun was up, rush hour was in full swing and the first dockers had already arrived at work. In half an hour or so the quay would be bustling with activity.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Big Merv wagged his finger at him, “you can run but we’ll find you and next time I won’t be so willing to listen.” He jerked his thumb in the general direction of the river. “D’you get me?”
The Pan glanced down at the dried lumps of concrete sticking to his boots and trousers; he wasn’t going through that again. Not at any price. He nodded.
“Well? Cat got your tongue? I said, d’you get me?”
“Mmm,” said The Pan, hoping it would be enough. He was still shocked at the rapid turnaround in his fortunes.
“Good.” Big Merv turned his attention back to Frank and Harry, “You’ve already seen ’e’s a slippery little bleeder. Don’t, I repeat, DON’T let him out of your sight.”
“No boss,” they said.
When the other two made to go, Big Merv hesitated and The Pan hung back. All he wanted to do was give the whole lot of them the slip and run away, preferably to somewhere where he could have a hot bath.
“On second thoughts. He’ll only go and escape,” said Big Merv. “You,” he pointed imperiously at The Pan, “come with me. I need a lift home.”
“Yes boss,” said The Pan, hoping it was the right thing. He realised, with a shock, that he had finall
y found himself a job.
Chapter 16
Far away in a different, parallel version of the universe, Ruth Cochrane was sitting in the dark, underground. The train she was on was also sitting in the dark. It hadn’t gone anywhere. Not for nearly an hour. Oh, the joys of living in London during a bombing campaign.
There was always a bombing campaign. Periodically the nutters behind the carnage changed, but the end result was the same. An outrage and some dead people followed by months of security alerts and delays on the tubes, as everyone became extra vigilant. Being extra vigilant entailed reporting every mildly suspicious-looking package to the police and of course, an increase in the numbers of suspicious-looking packages, mainly due to the removal of all the bins from the tube stations. Most security alerts centred around a half-eaten burger and an empty plastic cup in a paper bag.
It was boiling, too, of course. The carriages reached the same volcanic temperatures year round, but for Ruth, there was the added torture that because it was winter on the surface she was wearing a heavy woollen coat. She looked through her reflection in the glass at the darkness beyond. Against the black, dust-caked bricks of the side of the tunnel hung a series of cables. One was new, covered in shiny purple plastic. By the end of the year it would be furred up with black stuff like all the others. Still no movement. It was funny how the bombs tended to go off, and only abandoned lunches and misplaced briefcases were defused. Well ... no, that wasn’t funny. First day. New job. Late in. Late out. Brilliant.
Never mind, there was a recession, and being an arts graduate, Ruth was lucky to have found a permanent job at all, let alone one which paid more than the minimum wage.
Nobody would have offered her the kind of work she sought without relevant experience and of course, without a job, experience was thin on the ground. For all her years of highbrow learning, she’d given up on a traineeship and taken a secretarial course. She feared she’d make a poor secretary – she was bad at taking orders – but a girl must eat. A girl must leave home at some point after leaving university, too. So there it was, a secretarial course, followed by a few months of shaky employment at a company belonging to a friend of her father’s, and now she’d found a plum job; as a secretary, yes, but in arts PR. Alongside her secretarial duties, they were happy to train her as an executive. So, by giving up on her career she’d achieved the exact start she wanted. Result!
She turned her attention from the wall outside to her fellow passengers. The carriage was packed and about three seats along from hers she noticed an old man standing in the aisle. He sighed, wearily. A bunch of shopping bags were squished into the spaces around his knees. The usual turn-your-arms-out-sideways supermarket type of bags. There wasn’t room to put them down and she bet his fingers had gone to sleep ages ago. He smiled at her – a twinkly smile – and winked, which was a little surprising. Perhaps? Yes, she really should.
“Excuse me,” she said.
He ignored her, along with everyone else.
“Excuse me,” she said again, a little louder. He and the five passengers jammed into the small space between the two of them all turned their heads towards her with questioning expressions. She ensured she’d made eye contact; it would be a pity if she ended up inadvertently offering her place to one of the others. “Would you like my seat?”
The rest of them shifted irritably. One tutted. Gits, thought Ruth. “At least let me take some of those bags.”
The old man had white hair, bushy eyebrows, a hooked nose and as he flashed her another twinkly smile, a gold tooth caught the light.
“My, my! How very kind. But I doubt there’s room to squeeze by.”
“Oh no, it’s fine,” said the passenger who had tutted initially – a quintessentially London volte face. Most city dwellers wore a veneer of grumpiness but knew how to behave when pushed.
With a good deal of commotion the old boy shuffled sideways past the others and sat down. Almost immediately the train started with a jolt and Ruth nearly fell into his lap. She felt a little better, though. Late home, boiling, packed train but at least she’d done somebody a kindness.
The tube gradually emptied and surfaced in the suburbs. She was surprised when the old boy got off at Kilburn too. He didn’t look the type, too well-heeled. He had lots of bags and they had to be pretty heavy. What the heck? Lucy, her flatmate, was out so it wasn’t as if being late home would make a difference. She ran and caught him up.
“Do you have to take those far?” she asked.
Not as it turned out. Amazingly, considering she’d never seen him before, the old man lived at the bottom of her street, in a two-bedroom ground floor flat in a red brick Victorian villa – much like her own. Except that it was his flat, of course, while hers was rented. He’d told her his name was Robin Get, ‘like Stan, only without the z’.
“Stan who?”
“Saxophone player,” he said.
“Oh yes, of course.”
Who? She thought. And Robin Get? He had to be joking.
The old man, Robin Get, had offered Ruth a cup of tea and she’d felt churlish saying no so she’d stayed. She’d discovered he was retired – obvious – and that he had only recently moved into his flat – surprising. Ruth had always assumed people came to rest where they were when they were aged about fifty and stayed there. Perhaps he had downsized. He was also not Mr Get but Sir, Sir Robin Get.
“Who was that?” asked Lucy, her flatmate, when Ruth finally got in.
“Who?”
“You walked past the window with an old guy about an hour ago.”
“I thought you were coming home late.”
“I did.” Oh yes. Ruth had forgotten about being stuck in the tunnel for an hour.
“He’s one of our neighbours,” she began to giggle, “you’ll never guess what he’s called.”
“Ivor Biggun?”
“Ha, ha. Nearly as good. Robin Get. Sir Robin Get, no less. Do you think he’s a retired banker? That would be funny.”
“Not if he’s living round here.”
“No.”
After that, both Ruth and Lucy kept bumping into the old man and took him under their wing. One or other of them – usually Ruth – would see him most days, on the way home from work, carry his shopping and – more often than not – accept his offer of a cup of tea.
“He’s your boyfriend,” Lucy told her one day.
They both chortled with laughter.
“Yeh right. He’s about five hundred years old.”
“I reckon he fancies you though.”
“Cobblers!” said Ruth. Privately, she worried he might – presumably old people had amorous intentions too, and it was just the young who assumed they didn’t. Who knew what went on in the secret world of the elderly? Hmm. Who wanted to? “I bet he fancies you, he’s just using me to get to you.”
“Shut up!” said Lucy. They giggled. Ruth thought Sir Robin would be a better bet than Lucy’s current boyfriend, whom she considered unspeakable, but forbore to say anything.
The old boy was harmless enough, she and Lucy decided, and remarkably switched on for someone of such advanced age. So they fell into a routine of looking out for him, checking he was OK, and in his own way, he, too, was doing the same for them.
Chapter 17
The Pan settled into his new job and rented the spare room above the bar in the Parrot and Screwdriver. The months passed and became a year.
Finding something he was good at suited The Pan. However, he would have preferred to pursue a legitimate career, as a chauffeur perhaps – or even better, a racing driver. He was beginning to enjoy the glamour of being talked about and yet, when he heard people lauding his exploits, it was frustrating not to be able to own up to them – especially to some of the girls. If only he drove a racing snurd, everyone would know it was him.
He was the one member of the anonymous Mervinettes who actually was anonymous. Everyone knew the identities of the other three, even if there was no evidence. Like any se
nsible crime lord Big Merv had a clean record and a series of watertight alibis, as did Harry and Frank. They denied any involvement in the sudden spate of robberies when asked. But everyone believed the Mervinettes were back in business because the snurd was a MK II and because, without openly admitting what they’d been doing, Harry, Frank and Big Merv let them.
Everybody was talking about the gang and speculating as to how Big Merv had managed to find a driver that good ahead of the Resistance.
The Pan would hardly have dared admit to himself, let alone to any of the other Mervinettes, that escaping from the best the Grongolian security forces could throw against him had been quite easy. He’d been interviewed about it by the Free K’Barthan Broadcasting Corporation, the unofficial, underground news provider for anyone in K’Barth who was sick of the Grongolian stations. Not as the driver, of course, even anonymously that would be suicide, but pretending to be a passer-by.
“What’s your theory as to the Mervinettes’ miraculous ability to escape?” the reporter had asked him.
“It’s hardly miraculous, is it? They’re being chased by drones following orders,” he’d said, “and don’t forget, each one of them is driving a set of Grongolian wheels, that is, just about the worst ever made, while the Mervinettes are in the best snurd money can buy! If the police want to actually catch our boys maybe they should send some smarter guards and give them snurds, then they might get somewhere.”
The bloke had given him a disdainful look and told him he was disrespecting the Mervinettes, being uncharitable about their driver’s skills, and unpatriotic.
That was the point when The Pan knew, for certain, he’d been an idiot. And too cocky by half.
He felt guilty about it now, even if it was true. The longer they sent drones the better. He shouldn’t go telling them how to catch him, even in the underground press.
The police would never be issued snurds, though, so he was probably safe there. And the MK II was in a league of its own. The Pan was beginning to believe he might survive his five year tenure and live to do something else.