by Mike Ripley
‘He hates flying, that’s his problem,’ said Barry.
We were almost at Liverpool Street, the white Rover right behind us, before I realised we were going for a ride on the London Eye.
Barry-in-the-back wasn’t giving anything away, even when I used my most subtle approach.
‘Want to tell me what’s going on, then?’
‘No, I don’t think I will. You’ll find out soon enough. Patience is a virtue and everything comes to him who waits.’
He deserved a slap as much for the platitudes as for the sing-song accent in which he delivered them, not that I was in a position to give anyone except myself a slap, anchored to the steering wheel as I was.
‘We’ll be going over Tower Bridge, then, will we?’ Barry asked.
I arched my back and strained my buttocks so that I was taller in the driving seat and could get a better angle in the driving mirror. Barry had a paperback size London A-Z open on his knee, the bastard. For a real London cabby, that was more threatening than the gun he’d shown me earlier.
‘Can do,’ I said, trying to keep my voice level, ‘but we’ll lose the Taffy in the Rover. Once you ... Ow!’
Barry had jumped forward and swatted me on the left ear with the A-Z. It didn’t hurt much as a smack; the pain came from the indignity and the humiliation of wincing away in case another blow came. It was only later that I considered the farcical nature of my situation. To an innocent observing Londoner, it must have looked like a fantasy come true or a set-up from a ‘reality television’ show. The scenario: a black cab driver handcuffed to his own steering wheel, being beaten about the head with an A-Z guide by an irate passenger fed up with being taken the long way round.
‘He’s not called Taffy. Nobody’s called Taffy these days,’ Barry was saying. Even though my ear was ringing, I could tell his voice was calm and reasonable. ‘Now why aren’t we going across Tower Bridge?’
‘We can if you want, but on the other side we’ll probably lose your friend in the Rover in the traffic system.’ I chose my next words carefully. ‘Unless you know where you’re going, you can end up halfway to Kent before you can turn round.’
‘Fair enough, but it’s a pity. I was looking forward to seeing the Tower,’ he said with a note of genuine disappointment.
I was tempted to tell him that if he tried what he was doing to me on one of the real fraternity of London cabbies then he might find himself inside the Tower, as there was bound to be a law still on the books to cover such outrages.
‘I’m going through the City and across Southwark Bridge, if that’s okay,’ I said instead.
Barry flicked a page in his A-Z.
‘That looks acceptable. You’ve got about 20 minutes before flight time.’
That was when it clicked.
‘You’re going on the London Eye, aren’t you?’
‘We all are,’ said Barry, and his smile filled my mirror. ‘Should make a nice day out, shouldn’t it.’
It wasn’t a question, but I risked another burning ear by answering it.
‘So it’s a day out for you guys, is it? I didn’t know there was any rugby on this weekend.’
You don’t actually have to know anything about Rugby Union to know when they’re playing the Six Nations championship and the games are in London, you just have to hang around the pubs. All London publicans – and customers – love it when the Irish fans are in town, because it guarantees a party; they don’t mind the Scots, because they keep to themselves and get on with the serious drinking; the French pop in for some pub grub before hitting Marks & Spencer’s, so they aren’t really any trouble; and the Italians – well, nobody is quite sure what they do, as they’ve never been seen. But when the Welsh hit town on the Friday before a Saturday match, publicans give their best staff the night off and employ only those who don’t mind the constant whining about London prices, the fact that there are no public bars any more (where the beer is traditionally a penny cheaper), or that no-one sells mild ale (cheaper) in London nowadays.
It didn’t seem a good idea to share any of this with Barry-in-the-back-with-a-gun.
‘No, there’s no rugby on,’ he said chattily. ‘We’re here on business. The sightseeing is just a perk of the job, you might say. Travel broadens the mind, and all that.’
I hoped he had lots of Airmiles stacked up.
‘Can I ask what business you’re in?’
‘Oh, I don’t think you’d want to know that, and if the boss wants to tell you, he’ll tell you.’
‘The boss?’ I asked, but he didn’t reply.
Trying to psych me out with a menacing silence is quite a good tactic, and it always works for Amy, but Barry was Welsh and just couldn’t stand the pressure of not hearing his own voice.
‘You’ll be meeting the boss. He’s waiting for us and we’d better not be late. He’s been looking forward to his trip on the big Ferris wheel for ages. He’s just a big kid at heart, but don’t tell him I said that, will you?’
‘Gets upset easily, does he? This boss of yours?’ I tried, pushing it.
‘Best hope you don’t find out,’ said Barry.
I parked Armstrong in the shadow of the archway that carries the rail line over Hungerford Bridge, and the white Rover pulled up behind me.
Barry got out and stood there looking at the few passenger capsules you could see from this angle, suspended up in the air and rotating so slowly it didn’t look as if they were moving at all. I didn’t join him, because I couldn’t. I had to wait for Huw to climb out of the Rover, lock it with an electronic remote and take his own sweet time approaching my door and opening it.
He looked down at me and at my wrist still cuffed to the wheel.
‘Tut-tut,’ he scolded, ‘and they said you big city boys were smart.’
He reached in and grasped the cuff on the wheel with two fingers and it sprang open immediately, falling off the wheel and dangling from the one still on my wrist.
I held my wrist up and examined the bracelet still intact. If you looked carefully you could see that what was supposed to be a keyhole was actually a raised button in the metal. I pressed it and that half fell away with a ratchety click.
Huw held out his hand for the cuffs.
‘Just toys, really,’ he said. ‘Get them in the local sex shop, we do.’
‘Sex shops in Wales?’ I said before I could stop myself. ‘I thought they were called farms.’
I remember being impressed as to how strong he was for a man of his size, and how he must work out down at they gym, maybe doing the weights. That was as I was being lifted out of Armstrong by the ears and slammed against the bodywork. It was only when I’d got my breath back from the three punches he put into my stomach – pausing only to reflect on the fact that he’d been so quick he’d had time to slip the steel handcuffs over his right fist as a knuckleduster – that I realised he must be a boxer. There were other telltale signs – like the way he had positioned his feet and balanced his weight and not wasted effort, taking short-distance jabs rather than wild swings – but mostly it was the pain that convinced me.
He put a hand on my shoulder to keep me from sinking to my knees while I frantically tried to remember how to breath. To passers-by heading to and from Waterloo Station just across the road, it must have looked like we were having a friendly chat about the current programme at the National Film Theatre.
Barry appeared from behind Armstrong, or rather the bottom half of him did, for I could only register his shoes, trousers and the bottom half of his raincoat without raising my head, and that seemed just too damned difficult.
‘Oh dear me,’ said Barry. ‘You didn’t mention sheep-shagging did you? The Welsh national sport. Something like that? Huw doesn’t like that. None of us likes that, now I think about it. ‘Specially not Mr Turner. He definitely doesn’t like such talk. Better keep it to y
ourself for now, eh? Come on, he’ll be waiting and raring to go. It’s this way, is it?’
I staggered after him as he strode across Jubilee Gardens, mostly propelled by Huw’s hand in the small of my back. If I’d been able to think, I would have remembered I had left Armstrong unlocked and the key in the ignition.
If I’d been able to speak, I would have asked who the fuck Mr Turner was.
Chapter Seven
It’s London’s fourth tallest structure at 450 feet, has 32 ovoid capsules carrying 25 people each, it takes 30 minutes to rotate through 360 degrees, and on a clear day can offer views of up to 30 miles out as far as Windsor Castle and Heathrow. What else did I know about the London Eye? It was the only worthwhile remnant of the Millennium beanfeast – the famous wobbly footbridge down by the Tate Modern had already been forgotten and everyone pretended that the Dome had never happened at all. It had been interrupted twice, once when a WWII unexploded bomb had been dredged up by Hungerford Bridge and once when the river police had to fish out a ‘floater’, and when it had opened to the public the Ministry of Defence building in Whitehall directly across the river had issued instructions to its staff to keep the windows closed and the office curtains pulled in case the Eye carried coach parties of spies with binoculars.
The other thing I knew was that even though the novelty had worn off, you could still queue for an hour or more to get on at quiet times in the winter. Now was summer and London was tourist central, which should have given me plenty of time to find out a bit more about the mysterious Mr Turner by quizzing Barry and Huw when I got my breath back.
No chance.
With Barry and Huw so close to either side of me that I could have slipped under their raincoats in the event of a sudden shower, we marched straight up the switchback concrete ramp to the head of the queue – and then beyond it.
I was about to protest, or rather get the people in the queue to protest, except that most of them were Japanese and far too polite to cause a fuss, but then we were over the yellow line and through the gates with the attendants waving us through to the curved landing platform.
‘Come on, lovely boys, you’re just in time. This one’s ours.’
Up that close, you can’t help but feel dominated by the Eye as it towers above you, and especially when one of the capsules inches in along the loading platform. You automatically look straight up to the capsule over 400 feet directly above at the top of the arc and you think that in 15 minutes you’ll be up there hanging in the air with people down here staring up your trouser leg through the transparent capsule walls. The big difference between the Eye and the amusement park rides called ‘Terminator’ or ‘Scream Machine’ is that they don’t give you time to think.
I tried to spot where the voice had come from, and through a melee of disembarking passengers (all chattering happily and none of them even the slightest bit green) and bustling attendants, I saw its owner.
He was a small man, no more than five foot four, stocky but not particularly fat, and balding, the skin on the top of his head glowing pink where he’d caught the sun, though not enough to persuade him to take off his raincoat. He was of at least pensionable age and he had a hearing-aid plugged into his right ear. He waved an arm to hurry us on, and almost did a jig with excitement. I bet his eyes twinkled when he smiled and he was somebody’s favourite grandad.
Immediately behind him, hands clasped together near his groin in classic bouncer posture, was a much taller, younger version of the old man. This one was somewhere around the mid-forties, built like a rugby prop-forward, and his eyes scanned the crowd like an American secret serviceman guarding a President. He wasn’t wearing a raincoat, just a denim blouson jacket – he was that hard.
Even as I was hustled towards them, I noticed the family resemblance. The middle-aged bouncer was almost certainly the son of the old man and, after a quick look left then right, was probably the father of Barry and Huw. That made the old man their favourite grandad.
Up close, the old man beamed at me, and when he spoke, he leaned slightly to his left so he could catch what I said in his hearing aid ear.
‘Ah, Mr Angel, so glad you could join us. I’ve been looking forward to this.’
I put on my best bemused expression, somewhere between a drunk after ten pints of snakebite and a rabbit caught in headlights.
‘I’m sorry? Who did you say?’
It was worth a shot. After all, neither Barry nor Huw had actually asked me who I was.
It fooled Grandad for about two seconds.
‘Oh, very good, Mr Angel. You did that with a straight face.’ He pointed a finger at me, then wagged it. ‘You could have had me going there, but you see, I know who you are. Now, come for a ride on this wonderful contraption with us.’
‘I’m scared of heights,’ I tried.
‘Don’t be, Mr Angel,’ smiled Grandad, taking me by the arm. ‘There are plenty of other things you ought to be frightened of before you worry about heights. But do bear in mind, Mr Angel, that just because I’m up in the big city for the day, it doesn’t mean there’s a village somewhere that’s deprived of an idiot. You with me?’
‘Absolutely,’ I said. ‘Don’t we need a ticket?’
‘All done and dusted,’ he said proudly, steering me to the platform edge, where a capsule had seemingly come to rest, though they never actually do. ‘Private Capsule Hire, that’s the name of the game, though I wish they’d called them carriages. Capsules sounds like a suppository, don’t you think?’
Once the last of the passengers was out of the capsule, two attendants dived in armed with short sticks or wands with mirrors on the end. They homed in on the central light fitting of the capsule and held up the mirrors along either side, checking in case the previous occupants had left a bomb.
‘I think the security’s a bit amateur –’ the old man said in a stage whisper, pronouncing it ‘ammerchewer’ ‘– if you ask me.’
I agreed silently with the old man, thinking about the gun Barry had shown me in Armstrong.
Then I was distracted by another attendant, who clambered on board the slowly moving capsule with a small metal trolley loaded with trays covered with white cloths, ice buckets, glasses and three bottles of champagne.
‘Thought a snack might be called for whilst we chat,’ said Grandad. ‘It’s only £155 plus VAT on top of the £300 for the private hire, and if you’re going to do things, you might as well do them right, mightn’t you?’
‘You really have hired this?’
‘Oh yes. Private hire, and you can take up to ten people with the buffet. Funnily enough, they do a thing called “Cupid’s Capsule”, which costs £50 more, but you and a lady friend get the whole thing to yourselves. Goodness knows what people get up to on those trips. I bet those mirror-on-a-stick boys find plenty of unpleasantness after one of them. Come on, climb aboard.’
I stopped automatically as my feet reached the edge of the platform. I wasn’t consciously trying to resist – there didn’t seem much point, as I could feel Barry and Huw and the other one right behind me shepherding me into the nine-tonne transparent egg-shaped cell.
Grandad tightened his grip on my arm and looked up into my face. There was no expression of concern on his.
‘Who are you?’ I asked.
The question seemed to surprise him.
‘I’m Len Turner. Haven’t you heard of me?’
‘No, can’t say I have,’ I said apologetically.
‘Well, that’s probably been for the best for you. Up until now of course.’
I stepped in and we went up.
It had been a bit of a miscalculation on my part that nothing untoward would happen to me in a see-through cage rotating ever-so-slowly through 360 degrees in full view of 11 million Londoners. Correction, 11 million people, which is reckoned to be the day-time population during the tourist season, though not
all of them are Londoners. And not all Londoners can actually see the Eye – surprisingly few of them, actually – as, though it dominates the skyline, the natural inclination is to live nearer the Earth, and then the buildings tend to get in the way. And even if a fair proportion of the, say, eight million residents were actually looking in the right direction and upward to a point about 300 feet in the air and did in fact catch a glimpse of me having my face smashed against the inside of the plexiglass capsule, would they give a shit? Probably not.
It all started innocently enough.
Our private capsule inched its way into the air and Len Turner – whatever and whoever he was – made a fair fist of being the genial host. He even introduced the big bouncer type as his son Ron, who was indeed the ‘Da’ of Barry and Huw, whom I’d already met, hadn’t I? Boxers all three of them, they were, he’d told me proudly, and I’d said yes, I’d noticed.
‘Now that down there, that’d be Westminster Bridge, wouldn’t it? I recognise that one from the telly.’ He pointed just like a tourist would. ‘And that’s the Houses of Parliament, or the English Parliament as we have to say these days. So what’s that one?’
It seemed to be up to me to do the guided tour bit as our London Eye attendant was busying himself with his trolley, laying out aluminium plates of canapés and sandwiches on the wooden bench that ran down the middle of the capsule.
‘That’s Lambeth Bridge,’ I said cautiously, just in case it was a slap-earning trick question, ‘and the next one down is Vauxhall Bridge.’
‘And the other way?’ He turned and pointed down river.
‘That’s Hungerford Bridge right there, or rather Bridges: the railway one and the new footbridge. Then it goes Waterloo, Blackfriars, Southwark, London, Tower and eventually the Thames Flood Barrier but I don’t know if we’ll see that.’
‘Tower Bridge. That was the one the youngsters wanted to see.’