The Move

by Ray Timms

  Chapter 11

  With the engine running I'd been sitting in the Transit van seven minutes impatiently waiting for the cops to bugger off. Julie would be going nuts and wondering where I was ...like it was my fault!

  I had almost run out of patience with the two coppers still sitting in their car and chatting. I was thinking just drive off; does it really matter if they tail you? Yes it did. My nerves were already frayed. I opened the glove box and felt around inside. Right now just one, single, sticky, fluff-covered liquorice allsort would help. Nothing. At the sound of car doors getting slammed I looked up and saw Rambo and Butty heading over. I was getting good at groaning. Bloody hell! What now?

  Rambo came over to my window. Butty, hauling up his pants, was struggling to catch up. I sensed trouble. I wound down my window.

  ‘Step out of your vehicle please, Mr Blakely.‘ Said Rambo.

  He sounded a little officious. I got out smartly.

  ‘Mr Blakely, whilst I fully appreciate your wife’s predicament may be of paramount importance to you. I am in receipt of fresh information that requires me to make further enquiries into the possibility that you…Mr Blakeley, are in fact the head of a felonious syndicate operating between London and the West Country.’

  I was actually too astonished to speak.

  “Before you say anything I would like to run a few names by you…Do you, Mr Blakely, know any of these individuals: Mr Sean Bell… Mr Lawrence Blakely… Mr Robbie Blakely… Mr Daniel Blakely… and a Mr Carl Blakely?’

  What the hell! How had he got hold of those names?

  ‘Yes,’ I said frowning. ‘Four of those are relatives. Sean Bell is a close friend. As I have already explained, we are trying to move house…to London. We are not felons and we are not a syndicate’. All of a sudden I felt I could do with a lie down. ‘Officer would you mind telling me what this is all about? How is it you have the names of those people? Have they broken the law?'

  ‘The law!' Rambo scoffed, sounding, as if I was the one that ought to know!

  'Your little mafia family may have broken umpteen laws Mr Blakely!'

  I was now beginning to think the only way he could have got hold of those names was because my convoy had been pulled over. Although the thought of that depressed me, it didn’t surprise me. If they had been captured, that was really bad news. I took a deep breath and modulated my tone. ‘I need to ask, officer, in what capacity do you know of these people?'

  Rambo licked his forefinger and flicked through his notes. He cleared his throat.

  ‘Ahem: A Mr Sean Bell has been arrested on suspicion of driving an overladen vehicle, and failing to observe the law in relation to being in proper and full control of a motor vehicle…. Rambo flicked over a page and continued. ‘A Mr Carl Blakely, has been detained at the roadside, and is being questioned regarding a number of motoring offences connected to a Ford Escort van.' Rambo looked back at me. ‘Would it help if I were to read these out to you individually…?’

  ‘No… no… no thank you, Sergeant, I shouldn’t bother’' I really didn’t want to hear a long list of defects on the very vehicle that I never wanted to bring along in the first place!

  It was perfectly clear the convoy had been stopped, but had it been dispersed? In addition and more importantly where the hell was everyone?

  I closed my eyes and felt my shoulders sag. When I reopened them Butty had resumed his blockade of my exit. I wondered did his arms ever get tired?

  ‘You should know, Mr Blakely, there are no less than four separate police forces working on your case.'

  My case! My case! What the hell was he talking about? ‘What case? There is no case, there’s just me and my family trying to get to London…that’s all.’ I had to wipe my sleeve across my eyes.

  ‘There’s really no need to get upset Mr Blakely, we’re just trying to help.’

  “Help!' I exploded. ‘How the hell is detaining my family, in however many parts of this bloody county, helping me?’ I now wept openly.

  With his handcuffs in one hand and a spray can of Mace in the other, Butty made a move towards me. ‘You want me to cuff him Sarge?’

  ‘This is a serious business Mr Blakely.’ Rambo said and held up a restraining hand to his partner.

  I felt as if I were being dragged to the edge of insanity. Any minute now, I was going to wake and find this was all a bad dream. I slapped my face. It hurt. No. I wasn’t dreaming. This crap was actually happening. I felt nauseous. My lips had gone dry. I could feel my hands shaking.

  ‘Are you all right Mr Blakely? You’ve gone white.’

  I noticed Rambo had removed his sunglasses and was staring in my face.

  I must have looked deranged because Rambo took two steps back.

  Am I all right? I thought. I'd no idea? I was upright. That was something.

  ‘I think you should calm down Mr Blakely, we are trying to help you here.’ Rambo said.

  It felt as if my world had imploded, as if I were being sucked into a Black Hole, one that I would never come out of, but one that would give me some peace and quiet.

  My mind dragged me back. I started to relive all the upheavals and the humiliation we as a family had had to endure. I had been a successful businessman. Now I am a man on the run without a penny to my name. I saw myself in a wicker handcart, chained and bound, being pelted with rotten fruit and abused by lines of my creditors demanding recompense. And all I ever wanted to do was to protect my family. Now, I am little more than a miscreant choking on the dust of my barren life and being led to the place of ultimate shame. Noooo. Not Primark’s!

  I was crying openly now, heaving to get my breath and licking snot off my upper lip. Through a curtain of tears I saw Rambo bent over, his hands on his knees examining me. I could see his jaw moving up and down, in and out. His words, a muddy slur, I couldn’t make out. I could sense rather than feel my own hands batting the side of my head. Other hands took hold of my shoulders and shook me. ‘Mr Blakely… Mr Blakely! Can you hear me?'

  I blinked twice and refocused. Rambo had hold of me.

  ‘Will you please stop shaking me.’ I said levelly.

  Unaided I managed to get to my feet. Using my sleeve I wiped the tears from my eyes. Speaking in a flat monosyllabic manner I tested my voice.

  ‘I…I... I have to go find Julie, she’s pregnant you know... Five months gone.’

  I frowned at the ease with which such an invention could so easily trip off my tongue.

  ‘Oh.’ Said Rambo taken aback by this latest revelation. ‘With child is she... your wife? Well in that case, if you feel well enough Mr Blakely, you should be on your way and I shan’t detain you any longer.’

  I leaned back against the door of the Transit. I needed to catch my breath and coordinate my faculties. Did Rambo just say I could go?

  ‘You have a nice day.’ Rambo said with a sweep of his hand stepping smartly aside.

  I acknowledged the salute he gave me and then, not quite able to believe that I was finally rid of these two bumbling idiots I climbed back in the Transit and then looked about for PC Butty who seemed to have abandoned his blockade of my van.

  Then I saw him. Keeping his back turned, he was peeing in the hedge. He glanced back over his shoulder and smiled awkwardly before bending at the knees to zip up his fly. Hauling up his pants he hurried to catch up with his partner getting back in the unmarked cop car.

  I gunned the engine and sat there waiting for them to drive off. This felt like déjà vu.

  I could see their heads bobbing about inside their car. A cold and sinister voice in my head was telling me I might not have seen the last of those two bellends. I was right!

  ‘Oh hell! What now?’ I muttered when I saw the two of them climb back out of their patrol car and head straight for me.

  Butty was staring at me through my windscreen. His face had a look of grim determination when he
jumped into his starfish pose in front of the van.

  I sighed and wound down my window. ‘Yes Sergeant?' I said wearily.

  Rambo licked his thumb and flicked to a page in his notebook.

  Suspicious now that this had to be one of them Gotcher stunts that I’d seen on the telly, I had a good look at their uniforms to see if they might have come out of a fancy dress shop. I really couldn’t tell. I looked about me, in the bushes, searching for hidden cameras. For a moment there, to test my theory I considered knocking off Rambo's hat … Just as well I didn’t.

  ‘I have some good news for you Mr Blakely,‘ Rambo said and smiled. ‘I have just had a call on my radio to say that Sean Bell along with all your belongings are being escorted to a public weighbridge.’

  I stared at the cop and then said. 'I don’t consider that good news when they were supposed to be half way to London by now. What the hell happened?’

  'Calm down Mr Blakely,’ Sergeant Sylvester said, ‘All I can tell you is the lorry will be weighed and it won’t be allowed back on the road until it has offloaded the excess weight.'

  'I need to get there then. I need to help out.'

  'You could, but you may not get there before it closes.'

  ‘YOU MEAN THESE PLACES CLOSE?’

 

  I couldn’t imagine anything more ridiculous than my present situation. I now had Julie stuck in some tinpot village in south Devon and waiting for me to rescue her. Carl, no mention of him, must have done a runner driving a van that oughtn’t to be on the road and now it seems Sean and my kids, and all my worldly possessions, have been hauled off to a public weighbridge somewhere in Somerset. I licked my lips. I could really do with a liquorice allsort.

  I looked at Butty picking his nose.

  ‘Can I trouble you for the address and directions to Clyst St George?’ I asked levelly.

  When I steered the Transit into the car park behind the tiny police station in Clyst St George and parked up behind Julie’s Astra it was twelve-fourteen. I saw the Astra’s windscreen was a spider’s web of cracks.

  The police station was a bungalow, set in tidy gardens of evergreen, low-maintenance shrubs. The sign “Police” above the pair of glass doors at the top of a short flight of steps was the only indication it was a police station. I saw Julie, waving frantically at me behind the glass doors. I wondered why she hadn’t come out to meet me.

  I signaled for Julie to come out and I went over to inspect the damaged windscreen. I looked back when I heard her banging on the glass. She was mouthing words I couldn’t quite make out. Irritated, I went up the steps and yelled through the glass.

  'What?' I said. 'You coming out or what?'

  Julie said, 'I can’t the doors are locked and the copper went on a callout, he said he needed to lock me in.'

  I said, 'great how long will he be, only I need to use the telephone to call a windscreen company.' Julie shouted back 'How the hell should I know, he didn’t say, and how come it took so long for you to get here?’

  I tried the door handle. She was right. It was locked. The other side of the glass I saw Julie’ face had gone dark with anger.

  My mood was no better. We were both tired.

  Ten minutes later the duty copper came back with a bag of fish and chips. The smell reminded me I hadn’t eaten a thing since the two slices of toast at seven this morning.

  The PC did at least apologise for keeping me waiting. By way of recompense he allowed me to use the station phone to make a couple of calls. First off I arranged for a windscreen repair company to come out and fix Julie’s car. I was told it would cost three hundred and fifty pounds. I was glad I’d had the good sense to include windscreen cover with my vehicle insurance providers, who I called up next. The young man that I spoke to was keen to help me. ‘Yes, Mr Blakely, I can confirm you have windscreen cover, so we are happy to pay for that. How much were you quoted?’ I said, ‘Three-hundred and fifty pounds.’ He said, ‘that is certainly a good quote Mr Blakely and one that we would be happy to cover. There is just the matter of the four hundred pounds excess that you need to pay us before we can process this.’

  ‘But I have a quote for three hundred and fifty pounds to supply and fit!’ I protested.

  ‘That’s good then, Mr Blakely. It’ll save you fifty pounds.’

  An hour later, Julie had a new windscreen. I waved the fitter goodbye having given him a rubber cheque. I felt bad about that, but what else could I do?

 

  Julie was in her car waiting to drive away when I thought I should explain what had happened. I reached in the passenger door and lifted Rats off the seat and climbed in putting him on my lap. I ruffled his head. She looked at me like I was weird.

  'What!' She demanded. 'What you done?'

  I needed to keep her calm. I didn’t want us to be having a domestic, outside a police station for chrissake. I started off by holding up the palms of my hands. ‘Now, I need you to stay calm because I am on top of the situation.’ The minute I said she needed to remain calm Julie flipped. Her eyes blazed at me.

  ‘What have you done? Tell me what the hell you have done. Where’s my children and where’s all my furniture?’

  It was as if she knew. Women could do that… so annoying. I said, ‘look you’ve had a tough morning Julie.’ I genuinely felt sorry for her. I thought about all the crap that she had had to go through over the past two years. What right had I to feel sorry for myself? Wasn’t it my fault, the mess we were in?

  ‘Tough doesn’t come close.' Julie snapped. 'And you still haven’t told me what you’ve done.'

  I patted her hand. ‘I said, ‘my plan may not have factored in all the complications that might have happened.’

  ‘By complications, you mean my windscreen getting broken?’ Julie said suspicious there was other stuff her husband wasn’t telling her.

  ‘Uh huh. That and other things.’ I replied.

  ‘What other things?’ Her voice sounded hard.

  Someone at one time advised me, if someone, especially your wife was to get upset, the first thing you should do was to acknowledge her feelings. You should never, ever, not under any circumstances, tell her she oughtn’t to get upset. Personally I think that’s a load of codswallop.

  ‘Now,’ I said, wanting to keep her calm, ‘you really oughtn’t get upset…’ Hearing me say that she immediately became really upset.

  ‘Just tell me what the hell you’ve done.’

  ‘Here’s the thing Julie,’ I said….'

  Julie allowed me to explain what I knew which wasn’t much.

  ‘How the hell could you allow my babies to become abandoned at some… some, bloody weighbridge?’

  I could see the veins in her neck standing out.

  ‘Where the bloody hell are all my belongings? Don’t you… don’t you dare tell me you don’t know where my stuff is and where my babies are?'

  I decided to go back over that piece of advice, maybe give it a try. I said. ‘Tell me how you are feeling honey.’ It came out sounding cringe-worthy. Those words acted like a red rag to a bull.

  For the next few minutes I nodded dumbly while Julie questioned my ancestry, my I.Q, my management skills, and a few more of my shortcomings. I wasn’t surprised she chose to mention my inside leg measurements. (Whenever I bought a pair of trousers I always had to have them shortened.)

  ‘Ok,’ I said climbing out the car and placing Rats back in the seat. ‘Let me go back inside the police station and I will ask that copper where the weighbridge is. I will go on ahead go find the removal lorry and the boys.'

  ‘God what have I married?’ Julie said. 'You have now managed to lose our babies and all of our belongings.'

  ‘They are hardly babies Julie, ‘I said. ‘Robbie is an adult, and Daniel is at secondary school.’ I held out my hand to take hold of hers. She slapped it aside.

  ‘Just go find
them.’

  ‘Ok…ok,’ I said. ‘You go straight to the new house. I will go to the weighbridge, find the others and then I’ll get there as soon I can. Now stop worrying. I have it all in hand.’

  I heaved a huge sigh of relief waving Julie off. I was glad she was on her way. Bless her; she’d had such a bad morning. I couldn’t blame her being cross with me. I was angry with myself. If we had left yesterday, instead of going down the pub last night, we’d have been settled in by now. Next time, and I hope it is a good many years off we will do things my way. I drove out the police station car park hoping that by the time I got to the weighbridge centre Sean and Robbie will have got things straightened out.

  I swung the Transit out onto the narrow High Street of Clyst St George and with a hand-drawn map of how to find the weighbridge I set off thinking by the time we get our stuff to London it’ll be after midnight. I wondered what our new neighbours would make of that?

  My carefully crafted plan was fast turning into a National Lampoon Vacation Movie.

  After a few frustrating wrong turns, forty-six minutes later I drove through the open gates of the weighbridge centre. Keeping to ten miles an hour I followed the signs for the weighbridge office. The whole vicinity seemed deathly quiet. I began to worry the place was closed.

  I came to a low red brick building with a steel contraption set in the road that I guessed was the weighing mechanism.

  I didn’t know what to think when I could see no sign of Sean's removal lorry or Carl’s Escort van. I began to think that I'd gone to the wrong weighbridge centre. After a thorough search I had to conclude they weren’t here. I was angry with the copper in Clyst St George who had told me the police in this region only used this centre. I braked and kept the engine running facing the way I just came in. I was just wondering what to do next when I saw the top of a white lorry come around the bend. I didn’t want to get my hopes up so I told myself it wasn’t Sean’s lorry. When it came into view I cried out, ‘oh my God it is Sean.’ Following right behind I saw the rusted Ford Escort van. Tight behind that was a police patrol car. I waved back at Robbie who was waving at me through the windshield.

  Having escorted the overweight lorry to the weighbridge at Cullompton Sergeant Mike Trowers was done here. He was about to turn around and leave when he saw the driver of a White Ford Transit van waving at the lorry driver. Lesley Alsop saw him too.

  ‘ I wouldn’t mind betting that is Uncle Art,’ Lesley said. ‘The one whose wife has gone missing.’

  ‘We had better have a chat with him then.’ Said Trowers unbuckling his seat belt and getting out of the patrol car.

  I was chatting with Sean, who was telling me about how the lorry became bogged down in the soft verge and then the police had arrived, and messed things up, when I saw over his shoulder a police sergeant and a female cop heading my way. I sensed trouble.

  Trowers thought the man looked deranged, certainly capable of murder.

  'Mr Art Blakely?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How's your wife?'

  I was taken aback by his manner, this copper who hadn’t bothered to introduce himself.

  'Julie? Oh she's fine thanks.' I said confused.

  ‘Would you mind saying what you done with her?’ Lesley Alsop wanted to catch him out, see how he reacted.

  Trowers gave her a look, thinking she might as well have said what was on her mind: what you done with her body!

  ‘Done with her?’ I said now alarmed at the implication that I might be a murderer. Where’d they get that idea? I looked over at Carl who seemed about to say something.

  ‘Do you know something about this Carl? What are they talking about? Julie is fine,’ I turned to face the Sergeant.’ I last saw her at the police station in Clyst St George. Her windscreen needed replacing. You can check with the copper on duty there if you like. He’ll tell you.’

  As if to say, Lesley you are such a twit, Trowers flashed PC Alsop a look.

  ‘Was it you who planned this house move?’

  I didn’t like the way he said that, slimy like. ‘Yeah,’ I said, prickly. ‘And it was a good plan until you lot turned up. If we’d have left yesterday, as I had wanted, we’d have been settled in our new house by now.’

  Trowers waggled his head at Alsop, indicating the car. ‘Lets go. We are off duty now.’

  ‘You finished questioning me? Can I go now? I have a house move to reorganise.’

  ‘Yeah we’re done here. You go and have a nice day.’

  I watched them head over to their car. l remembered that Rambo had said the same thing. I wondered if all the coppers down here were programmed to say, "you have a good day." As in: "Mr Joe blogs I am charging you with murder. You have good day now."

  I was drinking hot brown sewage courtesy of the vending machine in the weighbridge office when Sean told me he had a plan. After what I had gone through, I was happy to delegate.

  This was Sean’s plan:

  ‘We offload enough stuff to make the removal lorry legal again. Then what we take off we will pick up later. In the meantime Lenny and Robbie will wait here to guard it. We all set off for the house in Streatham and then unload the three vans and Julie’s car. Carl and me will then drive over to my yard; it’s only a half hours drive, and we pick up a smaller removal van. Then Carl and me, we drive back here and pick up the rest of the stuff and Lenny and Robbie. Art, you should get off now. The rest of us can do what’s needed here. We will see you at the house later. How’s that sound?’

  ‘Not bad.’ I said nodding. ’However, there is one flaw in your plan. You know what that is?’

  ‘Yeah the Escort van might not make it to London.’ Sean admitted.

  ‘Hey,' Carl said. 'The van will get there ok!'

  Even the times when Carl displayed a tenuous grip on reality I loved his optimism.

  I threw the dregs of my coffee on the concrete yard and said, ‘ok, lets get this convoy back on the road.

  I was worried about my two boys, Christ what they must be going through! I took them aside. I needed to know they were ok.

  ‘How you guys doing?’

  ‘Fine Dad, but you look a little deranged,' Robbie said and grinned. 'You sure you’re alright?’

  ‘Yeah. You look like crap Dad.’ Daniel said.

  I gave them both a gentle punch on the shoulder. ‘Nearly over eh? Didn’t we do well?’

  ‘Yeah you done good Dad.’ Robbie said.

  I fished around in my pocket and found Robbie some coins. It was small comfort to me to know that although he was going to be hanging around this place for God knows how long, he could at least get some chocolate bars, crisps and cold drinks from the vending machine.

  I felt awful driving off, leaving: Sean, Carl, Robbie, Lenny and Daniel, Solomon the Bassett hound and the two guinea pigs now squeaking in their cage tied on the Escort van’s roof rack, but I didn’t see I had a choice. I swore that if I one day if I was lucky enough to hit the lottery jackpot I would repay these guys.

  It was a little after eight at night when I got to the house in Streatham. I was relieved to see the Astra parked at the kerb. Rat’s the Yorkie barked furiously when I rang the doorbell. I was reminded we weren’t supposed to have pets. Fortunately, Julie had thought to put the tea bags, the coffee and the kettle in her car.

  We still had a problem. One of us was supposed to have picked up our daughter Louise, on a break from Dance College, hours ago. Waiting at Julie’s mums flat in Tooting she must be going insane with worry and be thinking we had died. We should have called her to let her know what had happened. I imagined that Julie had, and she blamed me, saying that I was supposed to have rung her. Huh, when did that conversation take place?

  Julie said, ‘you wait here for Carl and Sean and I’ll drive over to my mums and get Louise. You’ll need to be here to supervise the unloading.’

 

  Louise ha
d every right to be angry with us. I tried to explain what kind of a day I’d had.

  ‘Yeah, but you could have called to let me know what was happening,’ she sobbed. ’I thought you’d all died in an accident. I have been so worried.’

  What could I say? She was right.

  11:32 AM.

  It was the lights of the lorry bleeding through the curtains that got Julie and me up off the sofa. In our rush to get the front door open we crashed into each other. I can’t explain how relieved I was seeing the removal lorry pull up outside. And… astonishingly, Carl was there, smiling out the windscreen. The rusted old Ford Escort van had made it then!

  Daniel climbed out the passenger door of the Escort and then went around the back to let Solomon out. Julie. Louise and Rats made a fuss of him in the crowded doorway before Daniel got him to drink some water and found him some dog biscuits and then saw to the Guinea pigs. What had happened to the “no pets rule” I had agreed to abide by?

  Trying not to wake the neighbours, we offloaded the removal lorry and the Escort van.

  Despite being tired, Sean and Carl turned right around and headed off to his yard to pick up a smaller van. They would then drive this back to weighbridge centre to pick up Lenny and Robbie and the rest of our furniture.

  The streetlights had gone off two hours ago. The sky in Devon that we had left behind had been inky black, the stars bright and twinkling. There was an orange tint to the sky in Streatham. I couldn’t see a single star.

  Four hours later, Julie, Louise, Daniel and I ran out of the house to greet the others who had just arrived back from the weighbridge centre. God was I relieved to see them.

  We did our best not to make any noise unloading this smaller van but I saw the bedroom curtains twitch in the houses opposite.

  Like exhausted pack mules we ferried boxes and furniture into the house and garden.

  Four in the morning, finally, we shut the doors on the empty vans.

  Exhausted, and not talking much we each sat on whatever we could find drinking the tea and coffee that Louise had made, Julie had found a couple of packets of biscuits.

  Looking exhausted, Sean, with the aid of his crutch, managed to get to his feet. ‘I have to get going. I got another removal job this afternoon.’

  I groaned. God! That poor man.

  ‘What will happen about the overloading thing?’ I said. ‘Will the police prosecute you?’

  ‘I don’t know Art. They may not. I did explain I wasn’t working, and that I was only doing you a favour, so hopefully, they will let me off. They did say they wont make an issue of me driving with a broken leg.’

  I looked at Carl, who was getting ready to leave. I said, ‘what about the offences the police have got on you, driving that heap of crap. I did tell you not to take it.’

  Carl shrugged. ‘Having no MOT or any road tax is no big deal. Thanks to you, I did at least have insurance. Getting caught without that would have been really bad news.’

  Sean nudged Lenny who was sitting on the floor his back propped up against a cardboard box that was coming apart at the seams. ‘Lenny! You coming?’

  Lenny grunted, rubbed the back of his hand under his nose and blinked. ‘Yeah, where we going?’

  ‘Home, Lenny,’ Carl said.’ Come on get up.’

  I must have thanked them a thousand times on the doorstep and then again out in the road.

  By the time I got back inside the house and closed the door, Julie, Louise, Daniel, Robbie, and even Solomon and Rats, were bedded down on whatever they could find.

  A little after five in the morning, unable to sleep, yet oh so tired; I sat on the lounge floor with my back against the wall and my knees up. I had to smile listening to the melody of contented snores ringing through our new home.

  Finally, I managed to trudge up the stairs. I looked in on Daniel who had found a bed in the smallest bedroom. The landing light splashed a soft yellow hue on my youngest who was curled up with Solomon. I found Julie and Louise sharing a double bed in the master bedroom. Robbie was sleeping on a mattress in another bedroom.

  Me…. I couldn’t settle. I’d heard it said you could be too tired to sleep… but I think for far too long, our lives had been in a chronic state of confusion. Now, for how long, I couldn’t say, I was in a comfortable space in my life.

  I found a mattress, settled down and closed my eyes. I was fast asleep when a fist hammering on my front door woke me. With a cry I sat bolt upright.

  I had been dreaming it. I wasn’t really back in our house in Crawley.

  The next day I rang Sean to make sure they all got home ok, and to thank him again for all his help. I could hardly believe it when he told me his radio had caught fire on the last trip from the weighbridge to London. Without pulling over, he ripped it out and threw it out the window. Sean told me Carl had had a flat tyre on the same trip. I couldn’t help but wonder if some belligerent and deranged spirit, angry at our attempt to escape Devon, had been determined to crush our hopes of a fresh new life.

  EPILOGUE.

  Three years had passed. I had been offered a school caretaker job that came with a detached house in Wimbledon. Julie and I were about to move house again.

  I was thinking it would be a nice gesture to ask Sean to move us. He’d get paid this time, He might be grateful for the work.

  I gave him a call.

  ‘Sean… me old mate. It’s Art.’

  ‘Art?’

  ‘Yeah it’s me Art Blakely… Lenny’s brother…. You helped us move from Devon. Remember the “old Convoy” Sean? That was a laugh eh?’

  I dropped the jokey tone when Sean didn’t laugh. He didn’t say a word.

  ‘Sean, I know that last time, the move didn’t quite go to plan, but I was wondering... you see, this time I have a foolproof plan….

  Click….Brrrrrr.

  Julie said, ‘is Sean going to do it?’

  I shook my head. ‘Erm, he said he was too busy.’