Gridlock (17 page)

'Global Motors,' Bruce said, and clapped his hands. The little doll that Hirohato had sent him laughed in the darkness of the night. It laughed at him, it laughed at the company he'd been with since he got out of the army, and it laughed at the United States of America.

Bruce clapped again, 'Global Motors.' He could not hear it enough even though it burnt into his soul. Again and again he clapped and the doll kept laughing. Bruce got up and strode about the office. Each time the laughter died he tormented himself anew, shouting the name of his company into the silence and clapping his hands till they were sore.

Bruce snatched up the doll.

'One day, Hirohato,' he spat. 'One day soon, now, I'm going to take this little doll and stick it so far up your butt you'll need a stethoscope to hear it laugh.'

The phone rang, as Sam had said it would. Bruce picked it up and the voice on the other end spoke immediately.

'Is it true, this nightmare? Is it real? Does it exist, this damnable engine?' the voice asked, and Bruce recognized it as Cornelius Brandt's.

'Yes, it's true,' Bruce replied.

'I did not really doubt it,' said a weary Cornelius, his voice dry and choked. 'But Turk is such a gangster, I needed to hear it from you.'

'Well, you've heard it,' said Bruce, 'and now you're going to do exactly what Sam and I tell you.'

Christian Corbet and his creature, Galton, sat in Christian's office at the
Sunday Word
staring at the big television screen.

'That's it,' said Christian, freezing the video, 'best shot we're going to get. You're sure the BBC won't give us any of their tapes?'

'After what George said about them in last week's "Voice of Sanity"?' Galton shook his head. 'Of course he was right, they are nothing but raving communistic, lesbian-loving Stalinists. One day, sir, one day we shall settle scores with our television "colleagues". We shall show them that the true meaning of the word "balance" is that the scales will always tip to favour the strong and ruthless.'

'Yes, all right, Galton,' said Christian, who knew that once Galton got going it was sometimes difficult to stop him. 'Anyway, it's of no importance, this picture tells me the story plain as day.'

The image on the screen was of the moment at the party conference when Digby had stalled mid-speech. The point at which he had promised to announce government rail policy. The point just prior to his ditching his speech and ending his career with a disastrous improvisation about roads.

Galton had reported to Christian the results of the Royal Princess Hotel investigation. It seemed extremely likely that the Scottish transvestite who had been spotted near Digby's room, late on the night before the speech, was the means by which Digby believed Sam Turk had intimidated him. However, if this was the case, why was it, Christian asked himself, that Digby had appeared perfectly composed throughout the following morning, and had, indeed, delivered the first half of his speech with what was, for the average cabinet minister, considerable aplomb – meaning that he actually faced in the right direction and got the words in the right order?

'It's as if something hit him halfway through his speech,' Christian had mused. 'Well, the party tittle-tattle is that it was a naked power bid, sir,' said Galton. 'It is their belief that he felt, by exposing secret policy and gaining for it popular support, he could push the policy and himself to the forefront of the Government, possibly even presenting himself as a potential leadership contender.'

'That's what they say, is it, Galton?' enquired Christian, his mouth now actually shut.

'Yes, it is presumed, sir, that he was seething.'

'Seething?'

'Seething at the fact that Department of Transport policy had to be conducted in such an underhand manner; secret contracts; constant lobbying; the real power lying with the Civil Service. As an ambitious minister, he is deemed to have seethed, sir, and yearned for popular approbation.'

'Galton, even Digby Parkhurst must have known that announcing plans to relocate St Paul's Cathedral behind a DIY centre in Essex would not bring him popular approbation.'

'They also think he must have been on the piss, sir.'

But Christian knew better, he knew that something must have happened to make a dull, featureless minister screw up his career and party policy so spectacularly. This was why he had called for the video tapes of the day's events. He had watched Digby leave his hotel to be confronted by the members of the rail lobby, he had watched Digby arrive at the conference hall and he had watched Digby's speech, particularly the point of confusion. Christian had watched Digby shout, 'What this government intends to do with the railways is . . .' and he had touched the freeze-frame button. Then, taking a ruler to the screen, he attempted to follow Digby's eyeline to find out what the Minister had seen at that precise moment.

It was blurred, and almost off the corner of the screen, but it was unmistakably there; a young man, standing up in the fourth row holding up a handbag.

'That's our transvestite,' said Christian. 'Bloody cheeky, eh? Fingering Parkhurst mid-speech.'

'Rather strange behaviour on Turk's part too, I feel, sir,' added Galton. 'After all, it was the precise timing of the hit which led to Parkhurst's road speech, and the subsequent debacle over secret government policy. Sam Turk, as a prominent road lobbyist, must be kicking himself that in bringing down Parkhurst he inadvertently brought down the biggest road-building plans in British history.'

'Sam Turk had nothing whatsoever to do with the incident,' said Christian, decisively, and he called for a second television and video recorder. The equipment having arrived, he inserted into the second machine the news tape of Digby's departure from his hotel and his encounter with the rail lobby. He froze the tape at the point at which the forceful young man pushed his way through the crowd . . . Through the general babble he could be heard warning the minister not to announce the formation of BritTrak, what's more, he had a Scottish accent. Christian looked at the frozen image of the man outside the hotel. He turned to the image of the man in the fourth row, one business suit is much the same as the other, but none the less, it was clear that the two men were the same person. 'Well, well, well,' murmured Christian through a mouth that was positively imploding. 'So Digby Parkhurst got stitched by a queer train nut.'

Toss was out traffic wardening, Deborah was at college sitting an exam and Geoffrey had the flat to himself. He was hard at work in the little work area that Toss had helped him to set up in Deborah's laundry room. This was a partitioned area at the back of the kitchen which housed the washing machine, tumble drier and ironing stuff. Most of what Geoffrey required to redesign his engine was in his head. The only tool which he really needed was his home computer, a machine specially adapted to Geoffrey's needs. This Toss retrieved from Geoffrey's flat at his first opportunity, which was the Tuesday evening after work. This meant that two days had already passed since Geoffrey had discovered that his invention had been hijacked. Toss also grabbed books, notes and whatever other stuff he was able to lay his hands on amongst the mess. This was not very much, because Toss was forced to operate without putting on any lights. The reason for this was because it was clear to Toss, having strolled past the place a couple of times during his lunch hour, that Geoffrey's flat was being watched.

Toss knew this because, in the course of his years tramping about with his traffic warden cap on, he had come to know every type of loafer, trader, ne'er-do-well and poser that hung out on the streets of London.

'I'm cool, guy, you understand. My eye is like an eagle and I am totally happening,' Toss had pointed out when asked by Deborah how he could be sure that the two men he had reported had actually been watching the house.

'It is my personal style to be hip to whatever is going down, yah nah what I mean?' he added. 'I know when a guy is just chillin't out right? Just catching rays, watching the fine ladies and hangin' OK? I know if he is a thief, right, a beggar, a pimp, a copper's nark. I have to tell you that I am so wicked to the street life of this city that I can tell you what people had for breakfast, yah nah what I mean! And the geezers outside of Geoffrey's flat was watching it, girl. They weren't selling chestnuts and they weren't delivering nuffink, they was watching.'

'All right already, so your cockney intuition assures us that they were watching,' said Deborah. 'I had no idea you were such a Dickensian character, Toss. Anyway, the question is, what are we going to do about it? Geoffrey can't exactly reshape the world with a ballpoint pen and pad.'

Geoffrey sat twitching on the sofa, wondering whether he should point out that greater men than he had done just that, but he couldn't be bothered to formulate the sentence.

The upshot of the conversation was that Toss had returned to the flat as dusk fell, pushing a pram. Geoffrey lived on the ground floor of a large old Victorian house, the sort where the old family living room had been divided into six 'desirable maisonettes' and the under-stairs cupboard had been converted into 'a totally separate and enclosed living area suitable for a young couple'. Geoffrey was fortunate that, being a moderately well-paid professional person, he was able to afford a whole floor, but the great mass of bell buttons on the front door indicated that above him dwelled many souls.

'Listen, Fleur!' Toss shouted into the intercom, having pretended to push a button . . . 'It's me, doll, and I'm back for good all right. Livingstone needs his mum . . . Now don't give me that, doll, yah nah what I mean?' continued Toss, enjoying his performance. 'Just open the door and get me dinner on, all right? And then you'll have to wash me shirt cos Livingstone's just pissed on it and that shirt is wicked threads, girl . . . What's that, doll?' Toss leant in, pretending to listen to the intercom . . . 'Loves yah? Course I loves yah, I fucks yah, don't I?' This triumphant bit of characterization completed, Toss leant in, to disguise his movements, and deftly unlocked the door with the key that Geoffrey had given him . . . 'Thanks, doll,' Toss shouted into the uncomprehending intercom as he pushed the pram into the gloom of the hallway.

Having closed the door he let himself into Geoffrey's flat. He shuddered slightly to see that the white outline that the police had drawn round the body of one of the men who had been unwise enough to take on Geoffrey Spasmo was still visible on the floor in front of the sideboard.

'That Geoffrey is a wicked geezer,' Toss said to himself, as he began to load the pram with Geoffrey's computing equipment. Toss had decided to stay the night at Geoffrey's place because he considered that the watchers might smell a rat if he emerged with his pram only half an hour after entering. A character such as the one Toss had created would certainly stay for supper and a shag at least. It wasn't so bad. As Geoffrey had promised, there was plenty of booze in the place, so Toss got his chicken and chips out from under the pram, plus his corkscrew . . . He didn't fancy using Geoffrey's, in fact, he shuddered at the very sight of the evil spike which he knew to have inflated the bottom of the man around whose body the police had drawn their sombre line.

'Wine, food, vibes,' mused Toss, putting on his earphones and settling down in the darkness. 'It is time to forget the dead, and chill out.'

Toss did his job of collection well and the little laboratory which Geoffrey created was sufficient to his needs, and, for a week, the little community at Deborah's place settled into a routine. Geoffrey slept on the sofa and never went out, spending almost every waking moment in his little lab, redoing his sums on top of the washing machine, earnestly working out weight-to-power ratios in equations so long that they stretched the length of an entire ironing board and constructing anew his specifications for lightweight alloys and revolutionary lubricants. The theory was all still in Geoffrey's head, but the retrieving of it was complex and time-consuming, and, of course, there was the washing to do.

'We need to wash our stuff, Geoffrey,' Deborah protested. 'The world may be on the verge of a transport revolution, but we still need to have clean underwear.' So Geoffrey reluctantly moved all his papers and Deborah loaded the machine, swearing, yet again, that next time she really would clean out the fluff filter.

Unfortunately, Deborah's constant presence in the flat proved rather a distraction to Geoffrey's work. Despite being in danger for his life and working against the clock, he still could not help his mind wandering to the girl who was, after all, the inspiration that had got him into the whole mess in the first place.

It was doubly distracting for Geoffrey because Deborah was at home much more than usual. It was the period of her final examinations, and hence her presence was not required at college. She was constantly in and out of the kitchen and whenever he heard her, Geoffrey's heart ached. Each day she thought of new things to wash, or iron. It was not that Deborah wished to distract Geoffrey, but it was the last week before her history of costume exam and Deborah was in a revision crisis.

Revising for exams is always hell. The mind wanders, panic wells up, lethargy sets in, the TV beckons. Deborah tried to concentrate, each day she tried, and yet constantly she caught herself coming to with a start having been reading a book for five minutes and yet not having taken in a single word. Throughout the week, Deborah, who was normally so positive and so lively, mooched and slouched about the flat, made coffee, offered to make Geoffrey coffee and watched the midday news. She rang friends on the same course to assure them that she was not getting any work done. They rang her to assure her that they were also not getting any work done. All over the country demoralized young people were ringing each other up to assure their friends that they had managed to do no work at all, while secretly suspecting that their friends must have done loads, and loads, and loads of work.

On the third day of her torment Deborah realized, with only four days to go until the dreaded paper, that she must really pull herself together, therefore she did what all the other tormented revisers around the country did, she made a timetable. She made a detailed timetable of how best she would organize her revision time in her last four days. She drew neat squares indicating the remaining mornings, afternoons and evenings, and in these squares she neatly wrote things like 'eighteenth-century French court dress' or 'work clothes as fashion', thus indicating at which time she would be revising what subject. This completed, Deborah wearily returned to the article she had been reading in
Woman's Own
about which member of the royal family had lost the most weight. Each morning Deborah read the paper from cover to cover, arguing to herself that this was a serious and legitimate use of her time. Secretly, of course, she knew that this was simply another anti-revision prevarication. Under normal circumstances, she often skimmed the paper, occasionally not even opening it at all. On revision mornings, however, she even read the situations vacant pages. Deborah was always interested in employment opportunities.

Ever since the Global Moritz had paralysed her from the waist down, she had been aware that forging a fulfilling career was going to be just that little bit harder for her than for most. Because of this, despite being currently a full-time student, curiosity often led her to check out the job market. Finding out which employers claimed to be equal opportunities employers – not that that meant much because, of course, it only meant equal opportunities for human beings, not fire hazards.

'Look at this, Geoffrey,' said Deborah, breaking into the middle of some mile-long equation forming in Geoffrey's mind and causing all the numbers to fly out of his ears.

'Global Motors UK are looking for graphics people in their design department. Maybe I should apply, do you think they'd give me special consideration seeing as it was one of their cars that put me in this chair?'

'Deborah, please,' said Geoffrey, 'I'm trying to concentrate.'

'All right already, for God's sake, one little word. I'm sorry,' Deborah snapped back. 'I have work to do too you know,' and she wheeled herself back into the sitting room, past her lecture notes and started to watch a programme for the under-fives which asked Deborah whether she'd like to pretend to be a puppy dog along with Trudy and Sean.

Finally, the morning of Deborah's exam had dawned and she had gone off, in a rare old state, at about eleven. Toss had been gone for ages as he was on the early morning shift that week so Geoffrey briefly had the place to himself. He went through into his little workroom and prepared to concentrate his massive mind. Unfortunately for Geoffrey, he was not the only one who had been waiting for him to be alone in the house.

Blissfully unaware that terrible danger was stalking him, Geoffrey became immediately and happily engrossed in his work, so much so that he almost did not hear when the tiny glass bell tinkled at his ear informing him that somebody was messing about at the back windows. Deborah, living as she did, on the ground floor, and being even more vulnerable than most, had done her best to make her flat secure. Toss was not always around, and, as he himself pointed out, he 'wasn't no Mohammed Ali, girl'. Hence Deborah had had bars fitted to the rear of the flat and an alarm system installed. Geoffrey reckoned this offered him a fair degree of protection, but, as an added precaution, he had fitted an extra electronic element to the alarm, whereby if the alarm circuit was overruled or the bell silenced by some skilled hand, the tiny little crystal bell would ring, thus informing Geoffrey that intruders were about without letting them know that their presence had been announced.

Deborah was glad that the bell had found a function, it had been one of the numerous gifts she had received whilst in hospital from relatives she scarcely knew she had. The only thing to commend the bell, in Deborah's opinion, was that it was small, unlike the six-foot teddy bear that a cousin who worked at Bloomingdales had sent. When you're in hospital for eight months people have time to send things by sea, and Deborah's relations had made good use of this service.

'Do you want to know what's embarrassing? I'll tell you what's embarrassing,' Deborah had moaned from her sickbed, in a letter to a friend. 'Being a girl from an extended Jewish family, seriously ill in hospital. I can no longer look the nurses in the eye. It ain't the treatment, having my orifices stared at in disappointment by students I can handle, peeing through a tube I'll live with, but being the cause of the postman getting a hernia, this I cannot take. The man has grown old bringing me my daily sack of presents. First he stooped a little, then he went grey and had a hernia, finally the poor guy ends up in hospital himself. They buried him last Tuesday, killed by the American shopper.'

The endless gifts had made Deborah terribly uncomfortable, not least because there are so many lonely people in hospitals, people who have no visitors and get no presents because they are old and their lives have died around them. Eventually, fortunately for Deborah, the daughter of a family of Soho/Italian restaurateurs appeared two beds up and even Deborah's family's efforts paled into insignificance – but not before she had received the bell from an aunt in the Bronx. 'Anytime, anywhere, beautiful girl,' the note had said, 'you ring that bell and God will listen. You ring it, you say, let's talk, and you talk. Believe me, beautiful baby, he will be listening.'

Deborah had been rather surprised that God had so little on his hands, but she did not make this point to the kind aunt in her thank-you note.

Geoffrey knew the story of the bell, and very much hoped that God was paying attention now. He knew that the intruders were attacking the back of the house, for the signal he had rigged up to the front of the house was the tiny beeping of an electric watch. Somebody, in the privacy of the back garden, was working away at Deborah's bars, and they were very good at their job, because Geoffrey could not hear a thing.

However, he trusted his warning system and so decided to institute the hiding plan.

Geoffrey, on considering what it was he should do if ever the hidden hand that pursued him were to arrive at his door, had decided that it would be unwise to try and fight. He was realistic enough to realize that on the previous occasion he had been monumentally lucky, and it would be foolish indeed for him to go about under the impression that he was in a position to get the better of enormous, heavily armed thugs whenever he so chose. Therefore he had prepared a hiding place behind the ironing board.