‘Yes, but do you?’ she said, looking up into his face. ‘Tell me.’
There was no way of avoiding a straight answer, so he said: ‘Yes, I like you.’
Suddenly she flung her arms round his neck and kissed him on the mouth. He had been unprepared for such an impulsive reaction, but he was not at all unwilling to go along with anything she might have in mind and he clasped her round the waist and held her as tightly as she could have wished, giving back kiss for kiss.
Once again she made a move for which he was not fully prepared. She took her mouth away from his and said: ‘Oh, come on, Tom; let’s have some real fun.’ And then she gave a sudden tug that took him off balance, and before he could do anything about it they had both fallen on to the bed of old hay.
After that it was all go, go, go and don’t give a damn. The jumper was coming off and the skirt and the briefs, and she was squirming around in the hay like a playful kitten; scratching and biting and giving little squeaks and gurgles of delight.
‘Oh, Tom! Oh, Tom! Oh, Tom! Oh, boy!’
Everything might have been fine if she had not been so noisy in her love-making; if she had been rather more discreet about it. But discretion was no big thing where Molly Secker was concerned; when she was enjoying herself she liked to tell the world. Tom Benton realised this afterwards, but by then the damage had been done.
It was the vision of his brother Arthur’s face appearing above the level of the hayloft floor that told him the activity in that part of the barn had not gone undetected. Arthur must have come into the building and heard the racket Molly was making. And then he had climbed the ladder and observed what was going on.
Tom saw the expression on his brother’s face, and one thing was certain; it did not register any kind of shock. It was curious really; it seemed to give the impression of gloating satisfaction, as if the scene revealed to him as his eyes rose above the boards had been just what he would most have wished to see.
He said nothing; he just looked at the two lying in the hay and they looked back at him, motionless now and saying nothing either. The locking of eyes lasted for perhaps a quarter of a minute, and then Arthur Benton gave a lop-sided grin and vanished from sight. They could hear his boots on the rungs of the ladder as he went down, and then the sound of him walking out of the barn, and then silence.
‘That’s torn it,’ Tom said.
Molly giggled. ‘What’s it matter? He got an eyeful he wasn’t expecting. Fat lot of good it’ll do him.’
‘It could cause trouble.’
‘Ah,’ she said, ‘don’t worry, Tom love. It don’t bother me, so why should it bother you?’
‘Maybe you’re right,’ he said. ‘Why should it?’
But it did bother him all the same.
3
Glittering Future
In some ways, Benton thought, Jackie Fulton reminded him of Molly Secker. There was not much physical resemblance of course; one was a honey blonde and the other a dark-eyed black-haired charmer; but in their self-centred amorality they were alike. They both took what they could get out of life and gave no thought to the consequences of their actions. Above all they both had plenty of that age-old sexual attraction that went way back to Eve in the Garden of Eden – if you believed in that improbable story.
He wondered what had happened to Molly. Was she married, settled down as the wife of a farm-worker perhaps? Somehow he could not imagine her in the role of a housewife, a mother of children. But people changed as they grew older, and maybe she had changed too.
He finished his tea and went back to the bedroom. Jackie had snuggled down under the duvet again and only her head was visible.
‘Are you going to get up?’ he asked.
‘What’s the hurry?’
‘I thought you might like some breakfast.’
‘I’m not hungry. Are you hungry?’
‘Yes, I’m hungry.’
‘So you have breakfast. You can have my share.’
‘Are you going to lie in bed all day?’
‘Perhaps. What time’s the meeting?’
‘Nine o’clock this evening.’
‘I’ll have to get up for that.’
‘There’s no need. I can collect your slice of the cake.’
‘No, that won’t do. I want to be there for the pay-out. I want to take my slice myself.’
‘Don’t you trust me?’
‘It has nothing to do with trust. I just want to be there and see it done.’
‘Okay, if that’s the way you feel.’
He went back to the kitchenette and got himself a simple breakfast of Shredded Wheat followed by toast and marmalade. As he ate his mind went back again to that business in the hayloft with Molly Secker. It had had repercussions, no doubt about that. In fact it had been something of a turning-point in his life; though maybe it had only accelerated what had been bound to happen in the end.
Arthur told Dan of course; he could hardly tell him quickly enough. But he had to wait until Dan came back from market, and by that time Molly and her mother had departed.
Dan was incensed by what he heard; which was precisely what Arthur had expected. He was so angry he seemed ready to go off like a bomb on a short fuse.
‘They were doing what?’
Arthur went through it all again, though he was quite sure Dan had got the picture first time round. He also added some extra touches of colour which came into his mind and were calculated to heap a few more shovelfuls of inflammable material on the fire of his brother’s wrath.
‘I’ll kill him,’ Dan said; and he was really frothing at the mouth. ‘I’ll break his bloody neck. Where’s the young swine now?’
‘I believe he’s in the cowshed.’
‘I’ll give him cowshed, see if I don’t.’
‘I thought you might,’ Arthur said, with a grin.
Tom Benton was made aware of his brother’s return from market when he heard him shouting.
‘Tom! I want you. Come out of there, you bastard!’
It was not difficult to deduce from the wording of this invitation that Arthur had spilt the beans and that Dan had not received the account of the goings-on in the hayloft with any degree of pleasure. In fact it was pretty obvious that he was hopping mad and half out of his mind with jealousy.
‘You can’t hide from me,’ Dan shouted. ‘I know you’re in there, so come on out. I want a word with you.’
Tom had no intention of hiding in the cowshed; he was not afraid of Dan, however enraged his older brother might be. So he walked out of the shed and saw Dan standing in the yard.
‘Something on your mind, Dan?’ he inquired, playing the innocent. ‘Something bothering you?’
‘You know damn well something’s bothering me. And you know damn well what it is and all. Arthur told me you and that – ’
‘Oh, so Arthur’s been telling you things, has he?’ Tom glanced towards the gate of the cowyard where his other brother was lounging, sucking a straw and grinning sheepishly. ‘I thought he would. Always did like carrying tales, old Arthur.’
‘Never mind about that,’ Dan said. ‘You been fornicating in the hayloft alonga Molly, so I hear. Do you deny it or don’t you?’
‘Fornicating? My, oh my! Where do you get these long words, Dan? Have you been looking things up in the dictionary? I didn’t even think you could read a word like that. Fornicating indeed! What next?’
‘Don’t you get smart with me, you young whippersnapper. I know what’s what. You seduced her, didn’t you? You got her up into that there hayloft and had your way with her.’
Tom had to laugh; it was such a distortion of the way things had really happened. The girl had been the leader right from the start. ‘Why, Dan, do you know who it is you’re talking about? With Molly there’s no need to waste time on seduction. Ask anybody.’
Dan’s anger was aggravated rather than soothed by these words. He was probably only too well aware of the truth in them, but he did not want the tru
th, especially when it came from his young brother.
‘You’re a dirty little liar. She ain’t like that.’
‘No? What is she like? You tell me.’
Dan was stopped in his tracks; he must have realised that this was not a road to venture on. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and glared at the other young man with hatred in his eyes.
‘You’re a shit,’ he said. ‘You’re a filthy stinking shitbag. You’re nothing but dirt. You’re not worth nothing, not a damned thing.’
Tom was cool. ‘Maybe. But I’m the one Molly likes. She can’t bear the sight of you. She thinks you’re a pain in the neck. She told me.’
This was too much for Dan; it was the final insult. Mere invective was no longer enough; the attack had to be physical. He was a heavy big-limbed man and he made a rush at his tormentor, launching a haymaker of a punch with his clenched right fist. Tom saw it coming and ducked away from the blow. Dan blundered forward under his own momentum and Tom thrust out a foot and tripped him up. The big man went sprawling into a deposit of fresh cow-dung and slid for a yard or so before coming to rest with his chin in the muck.
A party of horseflies that had been quietly taking a meal on this rich nutriment rose in a protesting swarm, none too happy at having their feast interrupted. Dan was not happy either; he was wearing his market-going clothes, Bedford cord trousers and a Harris tweed jacket, and these were going to need a lot of cleaning before he could venture out in them again.
Nor did Tom’s remark do anything in the way of placating him.
‘Now who’s the shit?’ Tom said.
Dan gave a snort like a goaded bull, got up and made another rush, head down, as the bull might have done. Tom, acting as the matador, stepped aside to avoid the charge, and Dan went past him and hit the doorpost of the cowshed head-on. The impact half stunned him and he sat down abruptly in some more of the sloppy dung.
‘It’s just not your day, is it?’ Tom said.
He walked away, passing Arthur on his way out of the cowyard.
‘You’ll be in the cart for this,’ Arthur said. He was not grinning now. Perhaps things had not gone the way he would have wished. ‘You haven’t heard the last of it, you know.’
‘Arthur,’ Tom said, ‘to call you a shit would be to flatter you.’
‘You’ll have to go, Tom,’ Mr Benton said. ‘There’s nothing else for it.’
‘Why?’ Tom asked.
‘Things can’t go on like they are. You’re a troublemaker; you know you are.’
‘What have I done to make trouble?’
‘You don’t need me to tell you.’
‘It’s Arthur and Dan, isn’t it?’
Mr Benton looked oddly embarrassed, perhaps sensing that he was doing his youngest son an injustice. ‘They don’t get on with you; that’s the long and the short of it. I hear there was a squabble today over that gal of Mrs Secker’s; Molly.’
‘I suppose Arthur told you?’
‘It don’t matter who told me. Besides, there ain’t room for the three of you. Two’s enough to run this place. You see how it is, son?’
‘I see how it is,’ Tom said. ‘I’ll be leaving in the morning.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Mr Benton said.
‘No need to be. Maybe I’ll do better for myself away from here.’
‘I hope so. No hard feelings, son?’
‘No hard feelings, dad.’
It was the longest conversation he had had with his father since the death of his mother.
He left the next day, and that was the last he ever saw of the old man. He got compassionate leave to attend the funeral, but he could tell that he was not welcome with Dan and Arthur. He felt like an interloper and he was glad to be away again. He caught a glimpse of Molly with her mother among the mourners, and she gave him the ghost of a smile, but he did not approach her. Years had passed since that day in the hayloft and there would have been nothing for them to say to each other.
He served six years in the army, rose to the rank of sergeant and might have made a career of it, coming out with a useful pension at the end of his service, if he had not done a very stupid thing. But perhaps it had not been so stupid really; perhaps there had been a subconscious reason for doing it; a necessity that his conscious mind did not admit.
For had he really wanted to go on? Had he not become sick of the military life, which was surely designed for a certain type of mentality that he did not possess? Had the promise of a pension at the end of the tunnel meant very little to him when it came to the point? Perhaps.
So he got drunk that night and took the tank.
He crashed it through the barriers and drove it down the road to the small West German town which was near the camp and was not expecting to be hit by such a hurricane of destruction. He created havoc there, crushing cars, smashing shop windows, bringing down street-lamps, the lot. Then he stopped the tank and gave himself up to the Military Police.
He was court-martialled of course. Fortunately no person had been injured; the damage had all been to property. But as far as the army was concerned he was finished; he was sentenced to a term of detention in a military prison and when that was completed he was kicked out. No pension, no honourable discharge, no helpful references to produce when looking for civilian employment, nothing.
He found jobs of a sort, all temporary. He had spells as a barman, bouncer in a disco, van-driver, caretaker, builder’s labourer … Nothing lasted; either he got the push or he chucked his hand in because he was sick of the work. None of it gave him any satisfaction; none of it held out any promises for the future. Generally speaking, the pay was poor and the hours long. Now and then he had thoughts of moving out of London and going back to the country. But what was there for him there?
Then he ran into Eddie Sangster and everything changed.
Though in fact it was Sangster who ran into him. He was doing another spell as a barman in a West End public-house, and one day the man walked in.
‘Well, well, well!’ he said. ‘If it’s not Tom Benton as ever was. Been a long time.’
Benton hardly recognised Sangster, and not just because of the lapse of time. This Sangster appeared so different from the soldier who had once been his pal in the army; now he was dressed up to the nines and looked as if he had money to burn. He also had a woman with him who was wearing the kind of clothes that could make quite a dent in anybody’s bank balance.
‘Yes,’ Benton said, ‘it has, hasn’t it?’
Sangster had left the army a few years before Benton. He had got fed up with it and somehow had managed to scrape up enough money to buy himself out. Maybe he had borrowed the cash or maybe he had a rich aunt who loved him enough to give it to him. Benton had lost touch with him after that and had not set eyes on him again until this moment.
Sangster introduced the woman as Susie; no surname. ‘Susie, this is Tom. We were buddies in the army many long years ago. We had some rare old times in those days.’
‘I bet you did,’ Susie said. ‘Pleased ter meetcher, Tom.’
She looked as if she would not have cared if he had dropped dead on the spot and her voice hardly matched the clothes. Common as muck was the expression that formed itself in Benton’s mind. But Eddie had never been particularly fastidious in his choice of women. To him they were just playthings, to be picked up and thrown down again as it pleased him.
‘So you decided to get out of the Queen’s uniform too,’ Sangster said.
‘I had no choice,’ Benton said. He gave a brief account of what had happened. ‘I believe the damage was estimated to amount to a hundred thousand marks.’
Sangster gave a low whistle which was partly admiration. ‘No kidding?’
‘No kidding.’
The woman was showing signs of impatience and Benton had other customers to attend to.
‘Look,’ Sangster said, ‘we can’t talk now. Can you meet me tomorrow morning, eleven o’clock, corner of Regent Street and Piccadilly?’
‘Not possible. I’ll be working.’
‘Take time off. I’ve got a proposition to make and it could be worth a hell of a lot more to you than this job. How about it?’
‘Okay,’ Benton said. If he lost the bar job it was no big thing, and Sangster appeared to be hinting at something better. ‘I’ll be there.’
Sangster was at the rendezvous on time and he looked pleased to see Benton. ‘So you didn’t change your mind.’
‘Did you think I would?’
‘Oh, you never know, do you? Let’s go somewhere we can sit down and talk. You could drink a cup of coffee?’
‘I think I could manage it.’
‘Come on, then.’
Sitting by a window and facing each other across a narrow table they drank their coffee and had their talk as the traffic rolled by outside. Yet now that the time had come Sangster appeared reluctant to get to the point. He seemed to weave all round the subject, dropping vague hints but never stating in concrete terms what it was he was getting at. He spoke of large sums of money being made without much trouble, but it was only gradually that Benton came to the realisation that the way in which the money was to be obtained was by activities that were not within the law of the land; in plain terms by robbery, with or without violence.
His immediate reaction was to shy away from it. Eddie Sangster had always been a pretty wild one, but Benton would never have suspected him of anything like this. He was shocked; but it was strange how quickly the sense of shock wore off.
‘Now look, Tom,’ Sangster said, ‘I’m not talking about snatching women’s handbags or stealing the savings of old age pensioners. Nobody really suffers by what we do; the loss is probably covered by insurance anyway.’
‘So the insurance companies lose out on it, don’t they?’
‘But they can afford it. It’s just a part of their business. I’m talking about the small people; they don’t lose anything.’
‘Small people, as you call them, pay insurance premiums and it comes out of them when you get down to the roots of the thing.’
‘But they don’t notice; it doesn’t hurt them. It’s like the pools; a lot of people put a little money in so that a few people can take a lot of money out. You might say we’re like pools punters who’ve found a sure way of beating the system.’
Dishonour Among Thieves Page 3