Life Goes On (59 page)

‘Don't worry.' I overtook a double dose of juggernaut. ‘I shan't kill you.'

‘I don't expect you will. Pull in, all the same.'

‘Getting nervous?'

‘Just pull in.'

‘We'll be all right.'

‘Pull in.'

I had to. No sooner had I switched off than I was asleep.

I felt a hand on my shoulder. ‘Come on, Michael. Time to be going.' Clegg held a cup of tea under my nose. ‘Get this down you first.' There was nothing like that comforting Nottingham tone to stop me losing my temper.

‘How long have I been out?'

‘An hour. But it's enough. You'll be all right now.'

‘We won't get there till two.'

‘What's the hurry? Better than not getting there at all.'

I had another beaker of tea, then lit a smoke. It was eleven o'clock. Wayland also lit up, and seemed more cheerful. ‘I think the car ride was worth it, to have such good cigars.'

He would never appreciate my favour of getting him out of Peppercorn Cottage. Maybe Moggerhanger had already sent someone to cut his throat – after last night's fiasco. I told him, but he said with a touch of bravado, ‘You think I can't look after myself? I've been in some tight spots in my life, let me tell you.'

‘I hope you get out of this one.'

I lapped our way along, to make up for lost time. I felt wide awake, having gone so deep under in that hour of sleep that it seemed like eight. I tore past everyone, never at less than eighty. What was the hurry? The highway was endless. You never got there. But I couldn't relax the chase. My blood was up, I didn't care what for. There was only me on the road. Others were toy rabbits in their tins, my sport to overtake. I shall overtake. He shall pursue, it didn't matter why. If God existed, He liked it that way.

I came back to life, my sight sharp and clear. At the yellow crossbars before an island when fellow motorists slowed down I pelted along in the outer lane and pulled up only when the white line was in sight. Sometimes I hardly braked but, keeping my eyes to the right and seeing no traffic on the island, shot almost straight across. The top speed of my faculties had come back, and driving to me was like water to a fish.

We made fair time down that wonderful Great North Road. I put Wayland out in the middle of Cambridge, asking him to deliver heartfelt greetings to my old college.

‘Which one is that?'

He tried to gibbet me with biting scorn, but I disdained to answer. Couldn't he take a joke? Not Wayland. But now that the time had come he didn't like having to leave our covered wagon, especially in the middle of the night, though it was only half past one. He knew the town from his student days, and could kip at the station till the milk train left for London. At least he wouldn't be hungry because, apart from money, I gave him more cigars and the rest of the sandwiches, this latter being an action which Dismal took a very poor view of, for he tried to bite them out of Wayland's hand before he walked off with never a thank you for our hospitality.

At two o'clock I went slowly along the lane towards the old railway station of Upper Mayhem, country residence belonging to Michael Cullen Esquire. The house was in darkness, as I had expected. I thought of sounding the hooter to give Bill and Maria fair warning, but couldn't resist seeing their shock when pulling them out of bed. Clegg and Dismal came through the gate behind while I fumbled for the key. The smell of soil and vegetation from the garden, and the sweet night air, was a real tonic. It was the first house I had owned and I loved the place. I would bring Frances Malham here and she would love it, too. She would come and see me whenever it was possible to get time off from her studies, and even after she qualified as a doctor. By then my divorce would be through from Bridgitte. I decided to get one as from that moment. Frances and I would get married. I might even think well of Uncle Jeffrey and forgive him for what he had done to Maria. Or hadn't done. I still couldn't be sure. It wasn't his fault that his vasectomy hadn't worked. I would ask him and his family to stay the weekend. I'd even hang a car tyre from the footbridge for his kids to swing on. Frances would bloom in a place like this, lying back in a deckchair in the sunny garden, the two top buttons of her blouse undone. Maybe she'd even be pregnant. How could someone of my age think like that? I was twelve years older, so she probably looked on me as a dirty old man.

A radio was playing, but it was between about three stations. The noise came from the living room. Just like those irresponsible lovebirds to leave it on. At least it was a sign of life, and I felt quite affectionate towards them, as if carelessness made people human and mistakes made them – almost – divine. I switched on the light.

All I know is that I didn't say anything. A catalogue of woes and curses would be needed to describe what I saw. The radio was going because it had been smashed open with an iron bar. The indestructibility of technology was a delight to see, but that was about all I could say for it at that moment. Half the time I had never been able to get that gimcrack Russian radio going, but Kenny Dukes seemed to have had no difficulty. He had simply laid the back open with the poker. Cupboard doors were hanging off. The dresser had been pulled over and Bridgitte's heirloom Dutch pots smashed. Chairs were ripped and the table lay on its side. I shut the door and ran upstairs.

Perhaps they had given up by this time, or taken Bill at his word. Unless he and Maria had got out, before reaping the whirlwind on my behalf. The beds had merely been tipped up. As if domesticated to my fingertips, I went from room to room and put them right before going back downstairs.

‘Looks like the worst's already happened,' Clegg said.

There was no sign of the large buff envelope I was expecting from Matthew Coppice. Perhaps they had found that as well. I checked the letterbox and it was empty. I pulled the batteries out of the radio to stop it squawking, while Clegg righted the table, shut the cupboards and set the chairs upright. It didn't look much worse than the shambles after one of my quarrels with Bridgitte in the early days. Dismal lay in front of the fireplace, in which the ashes were still warm from when Bill had kept a blaze permanently going to brew tea in case they cut off the gas and electricity. I put my hands in them. ‘They were here this evening.'

We went into the kitchen. There was a half-eaten sandwich on a plate, and a pot of cold tea. It must have broken his heart to leave that. I gave the sandwich to Dismal. In the middle of the table was a typed letter, and after circling three times, I read:

You're giving us a lot of trouble, Michael, and I don't like it. What's got into you? I trusted you. I never thought you would be so stupid. I thought at first you were running around the country because you thought the Green Toe Gang was on your trail. I thought you thought you were doing me a favour by your evasion tactics. I stretched a point. You disappoint me. It seems as if you're the victim of a nervous breakdown. It can't be anything less. Whatever it is, I'm angry. Things are serious. So as to get the situation straightened out as soon as possible my lads are taking Bill Straw and his girlfriend. If you don't get in touch, or deliver our possessions, or both, they will meet with a very prolonged accident. You know the sort I mean. If they do, you will have only yourself to blame. And when we get our hands on you, you will have an even worse accident. If you turn over the stuff, however, without undue delay, I still won't forgive you, though I might be induced to forget you.

Believe me, yours very sincerely,

C. Moggerhanger

Clegg filled the kettle for tea. ‘Some news?'

‘Yes. From Moggerhanger. Special Delivery.'

‘Will they be back?'

‘If we're lucky we've got twenty-four hours.' There was even fresh milk in the fridge.

‘Will that be enough?'

‘It'll have to be.' There was little to be said, though much to be thought. We drank. I poured some for Dismal, who hadn't even clamoured, as if he realised that our plight was grave.

‘All we can do is go to sleep till morning.'

‘I can't enter into competition with a decision like that,' he grinned.

‘I wish you wouldn't take every possible advantage of my misfortunes to polish your style. It's getting on my wick.'

I brought the car in from the side of the road, then stood looking at those clear and numberless East Anglian stars, and wondered when I would be able to do so again.

I lay in bed puzzling over what had happened to Matthew Coppice's promised papers. I'd thought up to now that if all went wrong with the disposal of the goods in the boot of the car I would at least have his depositions to fall back on, and that even if I got the chop they would already be on their way to Interpol. From a sky of bright prospects I was in the non-visibility gloom of nothing. Yet it didn't seem an unpromising condition in which to try getting some sleep.

Dismal lay across the bottom headboard, which meant I couldn't stretch full length. I didn't mind, because sleeping curled up as if I was back in the womb seemed to work, for the next thing I knew I waded through thick and perilous activities called dreams, trapped in clotted caverns like the murkiest insides of a whale, my feet invisible, and head drawn onwards by some gleam I never reached, the tip of a needle which, if I did get close enough, would jab forward and put out an eye. I heard the wafting slow swing of an enormous bird and turned my head in terror to watch it coming, waiting for it to get close and be seen. I never did see it, yet the two feet that gripped my shoulder made me shout and wake up.

Twenty-Eight

I thought they had come to get me. A sheet of Fen light was fastened at the window. I kicked Dismal off the bed, but it was Clegg who gripped my shoulder. ‘It's seven o'clock.'

I felt worse than when I had gone to sleep, but then, I always did. If I had woken up feeling wonderful I'd have felt awful, especially on the Day of Days. I knew that if I was alive this time tomorrow my chances of living to the extent of my biblical stretch would be fair to middling. Dismal went down to reconnoitre for food, while I lay an extra few minutes and sipped Clegg's tea.

Why was I so dead set on ruining Moggerhanger? If he vanished into the dungeons, there would be a hundred others in the fresh air above, jostling to take his place. They were the people who would benefit, not the clapped-out druggies perishing on wastelands and parking lots all over Britain. But Moggerhanger, the tin-pot god, had got me sent down for eighteen months to save his own skin, and now I was in a position to get my own back. I was feeling more optimistic by the minute that I would escape his wrath. Even without help from Coppice I could put enough information together, provided I was able to get the boat for Holland.

Clegg put eggs and bacon in the pan, while I gobbled a dish of cornflakes. The only hole in my scheme, and my heart fell through it like a lump of lead, was that by going to Holland I would be separated from Frances. There was no saying how long I'd be away, yet I had no option but to skedaddle. I hoped she'd remember me, and respond to my love letters homing in from different places.

I shaved, showered, put on clean underwear, changed my suit and polished my best zip-up boots, all in double-quick time. The gold cufflinks were awkward to get into the shirt-holes, and Dismal shook his head as I swore. I threatened that if he didn't show a bit more sympathy I'd send him back to Peppercorn Cottage so that the rats would get him. At which he sloped off to look for leftovers in the kitchen.

‘There's some post for you,' Clegg shouted.

I found a large envelope, which nobody else could have sent but Matthew Coppice. I put it aside, though, to open a letter with an Oxford postmark, which I knew was from Frances Malham. I skimmed it to see whether she hated me and, when it seemed she did not, sat down to read:

Dear Michael,

I'm back in Oxford and can't stop thinking about you. I'd like to thank you for spending your time with me, when I know how busy you are. The whole episode was a lovely surprise! I didn't mean it when I said I didn't need to get to know you because we had made love. I'd like to see you again, and hope you'll be able to visit me in Oxford. I share a house with another girl. I hope you're not toiling too hard.

She signed off with love. A short letter, but with its scented paper packing my wallet Moggerhanger's threats would fall on stone ears, while I had any ears at all.

Clegg sat by the range with shirtsleeves rolled up, while I looked through the papers from Matthew. Spots of rain flopped at the window, a summer shower brewing. Coppice had done his job. The future programme of world drug transport was set out in detail. Albert Croy would be coming from Brussels with five hundred and nineteen grammes of cocaine and two kilos of cannabis. A gang, whose names were given, was coming from Bogota, each member carrying cocaine in bottles of Scotch whisky. Another group would leave Bogota, three going to Paris and two to Frankfurt, each coming separately into London with a large cargo of cannabis. Pindarry would bring a car from the Continent, half the petrol tank for petrol and the other for cocaine paste from Peru. Jack Mullion from Barbados would bring in (date given) four kilos of cocaine in the false bottom of a suitcase. Cocaine would also come in from Montreal concealed in a false-sided Samsonitebrand case. Luis Gonzales and his daughter Rosanna (daughter, for God's sake!) would travel the Mexico City, Rio de Janeiro and Los Angeles route with cocaine. From the Hook (Amsterdam) a lorry would bring cannabis resin in thirty-five boxes of fruit juice, which load was to be met by Alport and conveyed to Breezeblock Villa at Back Enderby. Twelve kilos of cannabis would come from Beirut, and forty kilos of heroin from Damascus. And so it went on, page after page, the complete plan of Operation Hop Garden. Zero hour was in ten days.