by Neal Bircher
For the second time in one morning this man’s appearance caused Nick’s heart to both jump and sink in the same moment. He composed himself, paid for hisLoot, folded it under his jacket, and walked casually out of the shop. There seemed little point in trying to hide, so he strode boldly back towards Camden Station, knowing full well that his “friend” would not be far behind. Outside the station three minicabs occupied the small taxi rank. Nick got into the back seat of the first one, a grey Nissan Bluebird, and asked the Sri Lankan driver to take him to Brent Cross shopping centre. “How much will it be, roughly?” It would be about £14 or £15. He turned to watch out of the back window. Sure enough, his shadow was climbing into the next cab, a blue Renault Laguna.
There were a couple of cars between the two cabs. Nick took out a £20 note and gave it to his driver. “I’m going to get out soon, but please carry on and don’t stop before Brent Cross.” The man took the money and said nothing, just gave Nick a confused, or possibly even slightly angry, frown. To Nick’s delight they were soon passing a bus that was about to pull out of its stop. Great: now three vehicles between them, and one of them a big one. It was no time before a red traffic light brought his cab to a halt. They were on a slight bend, parked cars lined both sides of the road, and people thronged the footpaths. Nick couldn’t see as far as the pursuing cab, which meant that the journalist couldn’t see him either. He got unhurriedly out of his cab, and peered around a parked van. The other cab was definitely not in sight. He turned and walked briskly in the direction that his cab had been travelling, then, after fifty yards, he took a left into the first side street. The lights that had halted the traffic had just turned green. He jogged along the side street for a few car-lengths and then crouched behind a parked car, looking through its windows to watch the traffic on the road he’d just left. His cab passed, and then the bus, two more cars, and then the Laguna with – Yes! – somebody sitting in the back.
Gingerly he crossed the residential street of terraced houses and parked vehicles, but not many pedestrians, and walked back to the main road. The Laguna was disappearing into the distance. He then crossed that road, took the first side street, and kept walking. He felt jubilant: tenacious journo 0, intrepid escapee murder suspect 1!
Fuckwit Chavs
“But Nick, why would anyone want to drive a fuckingRobin Reliant?” Jason asked, starting to get annoyed.
“It’s a Reliant Regal; there’s no such thing as a Robin Reliant,” Nick replied phlegmatically.
“’Course there’s such thing as Robin Reliant; Jasper Carrot always used to take the piss out of them, didn’t he?”
“No that was Skodas … and Reliant Robins. Not Robin Reliants,” Nick informed him, blankly.
“Are you taking the piss? It’s what they’re called, isn’t it, ‘Robin Reliants’?”
“Nope … it’s not. It’s no more Robin Reliant than Focus Ford or Vectra Vauxhall.”
“Bollocks! So why do people call them that then?”
“Because most people are fuckwit chavs!” chipped in the boss, Tony Clarke.
That threw Jason for a moment; he was rather hoping that Tony was on his side. He turned his attention back to Nick. “Anyway, why isn’t yours a fucking Reliant Robin then? It’s the same as the one onOnly Fools and Horses.”
“No, that’s a Reliant Regal too. They are much more common than the Robin,” Nick kindly informed him.
“Ah, it’s because it’s a van! The car’s the Robin,” Jason deduced, excitedly.
“No, it’s nothing to do with that.”
“Bollocks! You’re on a fucking wind-up.”
Tony Clarke joined in again: “Jason, I think Nick probably knows more about three-wheeled cars than you do.”
“Yeah, and like I care; sad fucker! Anyway, my point was: why do you drive the fucking thing when you’ve got a fucking Porsche 911 Turbo sitting in your fucking garage?”
Jason would never understand an answer to that one. He was of the “if you’ve got it flaunt it” school of thought, and any different approach, whether ironic or otherwise would be beyond his comprehension. So Nick didn’t try to explain; he went on a different tack.
“It’s not afucking Turbo. It’s an ordinary 911SC.”
Jason wouldn’t understand that either: Nick pointing out that his car was a lower spec. than Jason had thought it was, and nor would it ever occur to him that Nick was ridiculing his liberal usage of the word “fucking”.
“It must be; it’s got a fucking great whale tail on the back, and that means it has to be a Turbo.”
Tony Clarke joined in again: “Jason, I think Nick probably knows more about his own car than you do.”
Jason looked hurt. “Well, whatever. My point is: why don’t you use the fucking thing?”
“Well,” Nick explained, “I used to. But then I got the manager’s job, and with the car money I went out and bought myself a nice little three-wheeled van. It’s really handy for taking things to the dump and that kind of stuff. Well, itwas handy until they stopped letting vans in – even tiny little ones, like mine. Now I have to stop outside and…”
Jason could not possibly begin to articulate how inexplicable this course action was to him, but he did know that didn’t want to hear any more about the fucking dump.
“You could have got an estate car. Why didn’t you get a company 325 estate or something?”
“Because BMWs are wankers’ cars! Every chav in the country rushes out and gets a 3-series as soon as he gets a bit of cash in his pocket,” his boss butted in again to explain.
After a brief pause, Jason responded, falteringly. “No that’s the 316 you’re thinking of, not the bigger-engined models like the 325 and the 328 ... Anyway, of course everyone wants one, because they’re the best car you can get for less than forty grand. It’s the wankers that go and buy some other piece of shit…I mean well, not everyone: Your Volvo, for instance, Tony, that’s a pretty good car…”
“Fuck off; it’s a barge! I just needed something big enough to get all the pushchairs and stuff into. You’re right though Jason, people choose their cars for all sorts of different reasons: You can have the engineering of a Saab, the, I dunno … ‘panache’ of an Alfa Romeo – like Martin’s, the serenity of a Merc, the subtle quality of an Audi, the performance of a Subaru …”
“Lexus IS250’s got all of those,” interjected Martin.
“… or, of course, you can go for the arrogance of a BMW! The choice is yours.”
Tony had a great way of bringing Jason down to size in a way that neither of the others ever would, much as they all laughed together at his expense now. But if the truth be told none of the four in the party was much enjoying himself. Tony Clarke had better things to do with his time; Jason was not getting out of it what he wanted – although he possibly didn’t have the intellect to realise it; Martin really could have done with a rare evening in instead of taking every offered opportunity for a night on the piss; and Nick… well he wouldn’t have chosen Jason or Tony as social companions, but, like Martin, was too nice to say “No”. He resolved not to do something like it again, and not to worry about offending people who weren’t worthy of such concern. His problem though was that he didn’t really dislike anyone and … well, he resolved to be a bit tougher and a bit less pleasant in future. He wished he could tell Jason to his face what a wanker he was, but he never would. He let his mind wander to other things. He wondered what Gail was doing at that moment. And then he noticed that the conversation had lulled, and he made an effort to get it going again.
“Gail changedhercar recently – or at least her husband did. They’ve got a Vectra now … a black one.”
Nobody joined in.
“She had an old blue Fiesta before; they’d had it for years.”
But Martin, Jason, and Tony Clarke each took the opportunity to take a lengthy sup of their respective beers.
Cars
Once he’d shaken off his journalist pursuer Nick carried on
walking a random route – pausing only to call in on a bookies to pick up a free pen – looking out for somewhere suitable to peruse hisLoot. That place turned out to be a small and deserted park, consisting of a rose garden and a football-pitch sized rectangle of patchy grass, and surrounded by an aging tarmac path. In the rose garden three wooden memorial benches had been placed in an area of large weathered slabs of paving stone. Nick selected one of the benches and settled down to go about his task, bathed in soothing lukewarm autumn sunshine. But time pressures didn’t allow him to relax, and he quickly opened up the car pages, bookies’ pen at the ready.
He had in mind the sort of vehicle that he was looking for. It had to be capable of transporting him and Gail in comfort and it should have a reasonable measure of performance. Crucially though, it had to be cheap (not much more than about a thousand pounds), but on the other hand had to be a bit interesting too … a grey Ford Mondeo 1.6L it wouldn’t be. He started in the “Classic Cars” section, where his bookies’ pen got to circle an old-style Volkswagen Scirocco and two Ford Capris. But he was aware that his heart was ruling his head with those, and he managed to get a better practicality balance in the standard “Cars” section, where in total he made fourteen selections.
He left the park to look for a public phone box. He soon found a genuine old-fashioned red one, alongside a large run-down black and white pub, called the Tudor Arms. It was located on a wide and busy street, where locals of all ages and races scurried or ambled in and out of any number of downmarket shops. In among those shops was a branch of the building society in which Nick’s savings were invested. That was an added bonus as he was going to have to find one of those to take out some cash.
It had been some years since Nick had used a public phone box, but the too-heavy door, graffiti scratched into the plastic window panes, and the pungent smell of urine, were each all too familiar. He didn’t want to be in there any longer than he had too, but it was close to half an hour by the time he emerged with his list of cars reduced, through non-answers, solds, not-as-describeds, too-far-aways, and wanker sellers, to just three. They were a (traditional) Mini, a Toyota Celica 2.0 GT, and an Alfa Romeo 156. He placed them in that order for logistical purposes. He would be using the Tube to get to the Mini’s home in posh St. John’s Wood, but first he had to go and get his cash.
Saving money had never much been Nick’s thing, but he had managed to accumulate just over £6000 in an account that he’d opened some years before. He was now glad that he’d made the effort: his rainy day had arrived. A miserable cashier handed over the cash, and Nick rolled the three hundred £20 notes into one bundle and slipped it into his inside jacket pocket. He had never handled so much money. It put a confident spring in his step as he strode off down the busy street full of people who, presumably, didn’t have six grand in their pockets.
The Mini’s owner was a plump matronly woman in her early fifties who had owned it for a long time. She’d looked after it well, and seemed fond of it, even though a gleaming new Nissan Micra had now taken its place both in her heart and in her driveway. The car was good, and Nick was tempted, but he thought he’d better check out at least one of the others first. He could sense the woman’s disappointment that he hadn’t handed over a pile of readies. It made him confident he’d be able to haggle a fair bit off the price if he did choose to return.
In the half hour of walking and tubing that it took to get to the second car – the Celica – Nick cooled on the Mini a little, underlining a golden rule of car purchasing: “Don’t do anything rash”. He began to have rational thoughts about its lack of storage space, its lack of suitability for long distance motoring, and its relative rarity (and hence distinctiveness). So by the time he rolled up at the very nice detached house in a wide tree-lined Crouch End street, where he was to meet a Mrs Parrington and her son’s Toyota Celica, the Mini’s odds had drifted from somewhere around evens to a distant six or seven to one. And when he cast eyes on the gleaming silver Celica resting comfortably on Mrs Parrington’s curvaceous gravel driveway, the poor Mini became a near-forgotten memory.
Mrs Parrington was well dressed and well made up in an expensive, but understated way. She shook Nick’s hand in a friendly but confident and businesslike manner. “You must be Mr Hale,” she assumed.
Nick affirmed whilst making a mental note not to use his real name so readily, and then turned his attention to the Celica.
Nick had already owned more than thirty cars, so he knew a good one when he saw it. And this was a good one. Mrs Parrington wouldn’t let him drive it on the road; he did though get to move it up and down the drive, establishing that it had a reverse gear and at least two forward ones. He was already quite a fan of Toyota Celicas. He would tell anyone that cared to ask that he thought that an old Celica, like this one – or even more specifically its slightly lower-spec brother, the 1.8ST – was the best value for money car that it was possible to buy. And he loved this particular car, which was in near-perfect condition. He was smitten; all that remained was to try to knock a few quid off the price.
After a bit of haggling in a phone call to Mrs Parrington’s son (Julian), the £1200 asking price had come down to £1050, and Nick was counting out the notes onto a classy large pinewood kitchen table. He couldn’t help himself ensuring that Mrs Parrington caught a glimpse of his £6000 wad. He could see the suppressed surprise, and sensed that she was probably impressed. Mrs Parrington had a very good figure and just the right level of quality perfume. In Nick’s detective movie world he and Mrs Parrington might have taken the opportunity to become better acquainted. But in his real world Nick’s schedule didn’t give him time for that kind of thing, and if he’d made a move anyway Mrs Parrington would probably have called the police.
So, the deal completed, Nick climbed into his new purchase, clutching its registration document and MoT certificate. He fired it up and wound down the window. Mrs Parrington daintily shook his hand. “Take care,” she said, followed by a warm and rather cute smile. Maybe she wouldn’t have called the police after all.
The sunlight was giving way to a dull late-afternoon greyness as Nick drove respectfully from Mrs Parrington’s gravel drive and accelerated away at a leisurely pace. His stomach fluttered with a mix of exhilaration through having a new toy to play with, and anxiety at the prospect of finding something wrong with it. After a couple of fault-free and funny-noise-free miles though he was able to relax, mission well accomplished.
Losers
Martin and Nick were just embarking on their fourth pint, and, having covered the subjects of football and cars to a sufficient level for the evening, had moved on to work – or at least, people at work. Like any workplace CountrySafe had its share of individuals who invariably provoked discussion among their colleagues, and in Martin and Nick’s sphere, Jason Barker was one of those people.
“He’s just a prize wanker, basically.” After a few beers, and in the right company, quiet nice-guy, Martin, could be quite direct … not to say, astute.
“Well it’s difficult to argue with that,” agreed Nick. “But I can put up with him in small doses; he’s harmless enough.”
“What pisses me off at our place is how arse-lickers like him seem to get on so well. Why can’t people see through him?”
“But I think theycan see through him. Look at how Tony was taking the piss out of him last time we went out. Arse-lickers don’t get on because of arse-licking: they’re usually hard-working, because they are keen, and more often than not, they are quite good. They just happen to be arse-lickers as well. It probably even counts against them sometimes.”
“Not sure how you work that out.”
“Well, the way I see it, there are three sets of people at work – any work, not just our place. First there are the losers. They would call themselves cynics. They moan about everything the company does, everything managers do, and they blame anyone but themselves for anything that goes wrong. You know the sort: always go into appraisals claiming
they should be A-rated at everything, and blame the system or their boss when they get Bs, even though they should probably get Cs. That prat who wrote that stupid letter complaining about the canteen food was your classic: any excuse to moan about anything … fucking weirdo too, but classic moaning, whinging loser. Most people are in that category, that’s why they’re so miserable at work … especially in IT with all the social misfits who love talking to computers because they are no good talking to people.”
Martin nodded in tacit agreement.
Nick continued, “And they always dismiss dealing with people, or communication, as ‘politics’, because they can’t be bothered to do it themselves.
So, that’s most people – losers!” He laughed self-deprecatingly at his own prejudice. “And then there’s Jason’s type: the committed career types, desperate to get on and achieve, and pretty much at the expense of all else. They call themselves ‘winners’. I call them ‘sad bastards’.”
Martin smirked.
“On the face of it they’re usually pretty cocky,” Nick continued, “but underneath I reckon that more often than not they’re really insecure.”