Life Goes On

  I turned to deal with Blemish, and lifted the shotgun. ‘Next time, you’ll get this across your chops.’ I pushed him into the armchair. ‘You might even stop both barrels.’ But I wasn’t getting through to him with such threats. He wore a collar and tie, a Fair Isle pullover, a tweed jacket and flannel trousers – the Master of Peppercorn Cottage. His grey eyes and downturned lips made an expression of murder. ‘Lord Moggerhanger said I wasn’t to let anybody in.’

  I told him who I was. He’d obviously been notified.

  ‘Cullen?’

  ‘Yes, you old fool.’ I picked up the book he had been reading, offended at seeing it on the floor. I read the title: A Knife in Your Guts. So that was it. There was a shelf of them across the room. The silly bastard had driven himself even crazier on a surfeit of Sidney Blood, that swine of an author who had a lot to answer for. I threw it back on the floor.

  ‘Why didn’t you say so, Smiler?’

  He tried to grin, in genuine Blood fashion.

  ‘The Boss said you’d give me a rough time.’

  His face lit up like Eddystone lighthouse in a gale. ‘He did?’

  ‘Told me you was a hard case. Said I might have to kick the door down and go in shooting. If I could get close enough. There’s a Dormobile up the lane, full of the boys. He was taking no chances, after you cut up two of his best men last week.’

  He got up to smooth his clothes. ‘If I do my job well I might be able to go back to my wife in Ealing.’

  ‘The rats blew town.’ I hadn’t noticed any, unless our rowdy entrance had scared them off. ‘How come?’

  He looked at me with unblinking eyes. ‘I declared war. Traps and poison. They became discouraged. I played a flute and caught one alive. I stunned it, and hung it upside down till it died. Rats are very sociable and intelligent. They could do nothing about their colleague’s awful fate because I stayed close. We made a pact that they only come back when I’ve gone.’

  I swabbed blood from my face. If he scared me it was only because I thought that in taking care of myself I might end up killing him. ‘You nicked me. What makes you so hasty with the rod?’

  ‘Can’t be too careful.’ He took a medicine bottle from the shelf, poured some into a glass, and drank it straight off. ‘Shoot first and ask later. I’m a hasty man, Mr Cullen.’

  Someone was walking upstairs. ‘I’ve come for him.’

  ‘Mr Smith won’t go. He’s a very sociable and intelligent person. We’ve had some long talks. He told me about socialism. He’s a progressive chap.’

  ‘He’s going to make progress now. The Boss told me to take him for a walk.’

  His face was pasty and his smile was no smile, though he did his best. ‘A walk?’

  ‘He wants insurance. He knows too much. I’m to take him for a stroll up the primrose path and show him his face in the water. You know what that means?’

  He laughed. ‘Concrete shoes?’

  I held out my hand. ‘Gi’ me the key, and I’ll bring him down. But don’t say anything. Get me?’

  He nodded. The stairfoot door was locked. I turned to see Blemish reaching for the gun again, and butted him so hard he scooted against the table. Half a dozen tin pans fell on the floor. His features scrunched up like those of a little boy hit by his teacher. ‘I don’t like you.’

  ‘Nobody does. I don’t even like myself.’

  ‘I never will.’

  ‘You think this is Kung-fu Castle?’

  He didn’t like my humour, either. ‘I’ll kill you, first chance.’

  ‘Try it, yeller-belly.’ I spoke from the corner of my mouth, and put the gun in my pocket, hoping he didn’t have another stashed away. The loony swine might shoot to kill. ‘Give me the key.’

  He threw it in the hottest part of the fire. Time was moving, ten minutes gone. A crowbar leaned against the wall, but I needn’t have bothered. The door was rotten. I went up the lighthouse-type stairs and into the first room. A small bearded man wearing a black Russian-style fur hat sat writing by a calor gas lamp. There was a mug of something by his side and half a dozen beer cans at his feet.

  ‘Wayland Smith?’

  He looked up. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I’m taking you out of this.’

  He smiled, but didn’t stand. ‘What was the fighting about?’

  ‘Move,’ I shouted.

  ‘No.’

  I was genuinely interested in his stupidity. ‘Why not?’

  ‘Who are you, anyway?’

  ‘I’m springing you, Sunshine.’

  ‘You’re jolly well not. I could have escaped any time, but I didn’t want to. This is the most peaceful time I’ve had. I’ve no worries, and I can write and think. So clear off and leave me alone. I’m getting on very well with Mr Blemish, and don’t want to be rescued. I’m also closing in on Moggerhanger. I’m onto something big.’

  He was. You could see it in his eyes. ‘You’ll be into something small if you don’t do as I tell you.’

  He picked up a bundle of papers. ‘This is only half. I’ll have the rest if I stay. I’ve got more information on Moggerhanger’s drug empire than anybody ever had before. It’ll be a great documentary.’

  I admired his courage in risking his life for a television company, but gave him a head-on close-up view of the revolver. ‘Move, or you won’t live to tell the tale.’

  He took an anorak from a nail on the wall. ‘If it’s like that.’

  ‘Have you got any luggage?’

  He had a sense of humour. ‘They didn’t let me pack before jumping on me.’

  I followed him down. We stood in the living room. ‘Say goodbye to Mr Blemish.’

  Percy ignored him.

  ‘I don’t think that’s necessary,’ Smith said.

  It was a diversion. I snatched his bundle of papers and threw them to the back of the fire. He burst into tears. ‘Why did you do that?’

  An arm went towards the flames, but I got him with the full butt of my shoulder, so that he flew one way and his cat-hat another. If anyone was going to get Moggerhanger it would be me. I pushed him towards the door. ‘I’m saving your life. You’ll be kicking up daisies if they find that bumf on you.’

  ‘I can remember every word.’

  ‘Keep ’em in your head.’

  Blemish sat in his armchair, interested only in a Sidney Blood yarn. I didn’t see how Moggerhanger could get anything like duty out of him. ‘Write and tell me how it ends.’

  Dismal followed us up the hill, zig-zagging from side to side as if not knowing that our job was done. We stumbled through potholes and soaking ferns. Fat-arsed clouds slid across the sky. Wayland was in difficulty because he couldn’t get used to the dark, but Dismal nudged him on when he slackened. I whistled as we got near the car.

  ‘I thought it was you,’ Clegg said. ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘A bloke I rescued. He doesn’t seem to appreciate it.’

  ‘They never do.’

  Maybe he was right, and it was the shock of freedom. ‘Wayland, this is Mr Clegg, my first mate.’

  I sat on the step and changed back into my boots. Wayland had gone. Not even Dismal had seen him skive off. That was all I needed, a midnight chase for the Shropshire lad. I couldn’t go back to Festung Peppercorn because Blemish, realising what I’d done, would be walking in circles with the manic energy of a hornet’s nest. To go near him again might mean death for both of us. I got Dismal by the nose. ‘Find him,’ I said angrily, ‘or I’ll stop your Bogie.’

  He whined, and ran off with his nozzle to the ground. I walked as if I was blind, here, there and everywhere. The gateway from one field to another was pitted by the hoofmarks of cows. Each foot had gone into the mud and, when withdrawn, had left a circular hole of water. There were scores of them in the beam of my flashlight, I tried to step onto dry spaces between the holes as I went along with my loaded shotgun, but the grass broke down under pressure, and mud that welled over my boot tops came in through the lace-holes.
r />   Something moved, a rabbit running away. Why it strayed from a snug burrow on such a night I couldn’t imagine. I cursed Wayland Smith, and got to the top of the hill. Peppercorn Cottage was in deep shadow to my right. Lights twinkled on a hill in the distance. A loud cracking of twigs sounded near the path, and I heard a bark from Dismal.

  ‘Get him off! He’ll bite me. The brute!’

  He hadn’t had any Bogie for an hour, and might well be squaring up for a nibble, so I put on a spurt. A low branch tripped me and I half stunned myself when I did a header. The shotgun, luckily on safety, flew in front. I landed on grass, which turned my overcoat greener.

  Wayland was in a snivelling mess but, my boots and trousers being splashed with mud, I gave him such a shove he nearly went flying off the hillside back to Birmingham. ‘What the hell do you think you’re up to?’

  ‘You gave me no alternative,’ he gasped.

  I prodded him as we made tracks to the car. ‘It’ll be all the more to put in your article.’

  ‘Documentary,’ he said, in a normally offended voice. I blindfolded him with a piece of rag in case he thought to find his way back after I threw him out of the car. He’d obviously been brought in the same way, because he didn’t grumble when I pulled it tight. We trundled down the track in the Roller, and after Clegg let us through the gate we were soon back on signposted lanes.

  I began to wonder what I would do. I didn’t even know where I was. I drove in circles, having lost my sense of direction. Looking at the map made no difference. The twists and undulations of the sunken lanes, the unfamiliar names of hamlets and villages, and above all the darkness, plus the presence of three conflicting spirits in the car, made my hands shake in a punchdrunk fashion. I stopped at a fork – hoping the middle-of-the-night milkman wouldn’t come smashing into me – and got out the map again.

  ‘You’re exhausted,’ said Clegg.

  ‘Thanks for nothing.’ What I wanted was a dose of alcohol, but it was more than I dared do. I never drank when driving, and even less when I was knackered. I looked at the dashboard. It had just gone two. Apart from the nap at Upper Mayhem I’d been on the go for fourteen hours. I’d taken part in the robbery of the year, met an old acquaintance and given him a job, and liberated a kidnapped member of the media. I had also hijacked the loot from the aforesaid robbery, which was an indescribably stupid act and meant I was as good as dead. All I craved to bring me back to life was a sight of the super-intelligent face and beautifully creamy bosom of Frances Malham. But it was no good. She didn’t love me. No sooner had I discovered the love of my life than I had done something to lose life itself.

  ‘Give me the map.’

  Clegg walked to the signpost, turned the map round a few times, then came back. I lifted my head from my hands. ‘Well?’

  ‘We’re only five miles from where we came from. Where do you want to go?’

  ‘Shrewsbury,’ I whispered, so that Wayland Smith wouldn’t hear.

  ‘Turn left at the next fork. In half a mile you’ll hit a B road. Go right, then left almost immediately. After another couple of miles it should be signposted. It’ll be just over twenty miles from that point.’

  I set off.

  ‘I’ll get you to wherever you want to go, as long as you know where you want to get to,’ he said. ‘I can’t say fairer than that, can I?’

  For a start he could shut up, but I maintained a stiff upper lip, as befitted the captain of the Flying Dutchman. ‘When we hit the main road I’ll want a layby to stop at, so that we can eat. There’s a jumbo flask of tea and fifty more sandwiches in the snapbag.’

  By the lights of a village junction, not far from the main road, a car came towards us with all beams on. They showed him the way, whoever he was, but they burned the macadam, and sizzled the eyeballs of oncoming vehicles. It was like God on wheels. You didn’t stand a chance. The big light was coming, and you had to get out. I held the steering column gently and bumped the verge, but stayed on the road.

  ‘He was in a hurry,’ Clegg said calmly.

  ‘What sort was it?’

  ‘One of these, I think.’

  ‘Then so are we.’ If it wasn’t Moggerhanger himself it was part of the gang, going to Peppercorn Cottage to make sure I had turned up with the swag. On the other hand it might have been Chief Inspector Lanthorn, who had borrowed a Roller from the local car pound and was going to Peppercorn before any of Moggerhanger’s lot so as to take the loot for himself. It wouldn’t be above his line of thinking. He’d anticipate no aggravation, getting the swag off me. But he would discover that I had been and gone. ‘Calling all cars …’ Let him find me. If that was the case, and I made it back to Gog-Magogdom, I’d be Claud’s golden boy forever.

  It was a fantasy to get me through the worst of the shakes. Whoever was in that car, they had seen me for sure, especially in such light as they had generated. My guts were turning to Mazawattee, as my mother used to say, but my fatigue was forgotten for a while.

  On the main road, I was flat out for Shrewsbury, with no thought of stopping. They could turn round and come after me, though I guessed it was more likely they would go first to the cottage to check on what I had deposited there. It didn’t leave much time in which to lose myself. I explained the situation to Clegg, though he had guessed quite a bit already. ‘What would you do if you were in my shoes?’

  ‘We all are,’ he replied, ‘including Dismal. But give me a minute or two.’

  ‘Be my guest.’

  He let that pass. ‘From the point he saw you at, you could have been heading for London.’ He spread the maps out like a general, or an examining engineer. ‘On the other hand, you could have been going north. They’ve only got one car, so they’ll have to make a choice. They could make the wrong one. On the other hand, they could make the right one.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘I’m doing my best. I said I needed a minute or two. On the other hand, we could turn back and go into Wales. But there’s less road density, and you’d be spotted from afar, and then trapped. Steady as you go, and veer left at the next lane. After two miles you’ll be on the main route to Shrewsbury. Then you can let rip. At Shrewsbury, or on the outskirts’ – he lowered his voice – ‘put your passenger off, then head for the Manchester-Leeds-Sheffield triangle. Nobody will find you there. I’ll navigate you via Stafford, Uttoxeter, Ashbourne and Matlock.’

  The road climbed, higher hills to our left. ‘I’ll never forget you.’

  ‘I haven’t enjoyed myself so much for a long time,’ he said. ‘Not for more than ten years, and that’s a fact.’

  ‘What’s happening to Wayland?’

  ‘The lucky chap’s asleep. Turn left at this major road, and set your compass north.’

  I felt better. ‘There’s a box near your right foot. Open it and pass us a sandwich. And dish out the tea. We can feed on the trot. Take Wayland’s blindfold off when he wakes up.’ I wanted daylight to come, because though night conceals I felt that, at the moment, we would be less conspicuous in daytime. Headlights could betray you for miles, whereas in the confusion of extra traffic we’d be comparatively hidden. I explained this to Clegg.

  ‘You’re learning.’

  ‘I’d have known it at five years of age, if I’d had a car.’

  ‘I mean you’re sharing your thoughts.’

  I decided to shut up. Yet it wasn’t in me to stick to such a whim. I had always spoken what was on my mind. In any case, it was too often on my face. ‘We’ve come a long way in a few hours.’

  He got out the map, and was even sarkier. ‘As the crow flies, it’s forty miles.’ He passed a bundle of sandwiches like a postman handing letters. The one I held for Dismal went in a single snap. I threw him another before managing to wolf one myself. Wayland woke up: ‘Do I sense food?’

  Clegg undid the blindfold and gave him something.

  ‘I’m dropping you off in half an hour,’ I said.

  ‘Thank you very much for the favour.’
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  I wasn’t very good at taking sarcasm from someone I didn’t like. Dismal nudged me for another bite. ‘No favour.’

  ‘And where will that dropping-off point be, in this benighted country, if you please, chauffeur?’

  ‘In the nearest fucking ditch if you don’t shut up,’ I said.

  Glegg passed a plastic cup of scalding tea, otherwise I’d have carried out my intention, especially as it had just started to thrash down with rain. A post office van nearly hit us as it came round a bend. Then a Telecom wagon overtook me and almost skidded into a tree. They didn’t dip lights in this part of the country. ‘You’ll be set down in Cheltenham,’ I said. Unfortunately the signposts would tell him where he was.

  He made an attempt to laugh, and almost succeeded, then took another sandwich from the box. ‘I know exactly where Peppercorn Cottage is. Blemish is such a fool. His heart’s full of steel wool. I’d have worked it out, anyway.’

  ‘Go back,’ I said. ‘It’ll be your funeral.’

  ‘I’ll stay with you, after all.’

  ‘Think you’ll get a new lead?’ My laugh wasn’t exactly hollow, but it was certainly concave. ‘It’ll still be your funeral.’

  ‘Don’t I have any choice?’

  I avoided a hedgehog crossing the road. ‘How long is it since you walked five miles?’

  ‘I’ve forgotten.’

  ‘Well, watch those Shrewsbury signposts, because when it says five, you’re out. If your legs give way you can walk on your arse.’

  Clegg asked if he had any money for the train.

  ‘Some.’

  ‘Drop him at the station, Michael.’

  Since I’d had the foresight to load up with grub and feed everyone so well, I supposed I was captain of the ship. I also happened to be driving. Even Dismal had no cause to get broody, though the only disadvantage of topping him up as much as it pleased me to was that the car became filled with odours suggesting that we were passing an endless gasworks on one side of the road, and an extensive rotten egg plant on the other. No air-conditioning system could deal with the clouds of his guileless effusions. To open a window would set the rain against us. The only solution was to stop and let him out, otherwise we’d choke. ‘Three men in a car found dead in mysterious circumstances,’ people would read in Offa’s Mirror.