Spend Game (26 page)

The torchlight touched my eyes. I raised both hands, squinting towards the aperture.

‘Don’t shoot, don’t shoot!’ I squawked. ‘Please, mate. Your pal’s gone through there.’ I pointed to my right. ‘I’m stuck.’

The bastard held me like that for what seemed an hour. Of course, he could only see my top half from his position along the crawl-way, but that didn’t make me feel any easier.

‘Stay like that.’ There was a pause. The swine was wondering whether it would be wiser to shoot me now.

‘Jim told me to show you the other exit.’ Pretty feeble, but it was the best lie I could invent to increase my paltry value.

‘He thought another minute. ‘Pass it out first, Lovejoy.’

‘How the hell can I? My leg’s stuck fast.’

‘You said it was your arm.’

‘Jim got that out.’

Another pause. ‘Just stand still, Lovejoy. I don’t trust you.’

He squirmed nearer, slower and more careful.

There was enough light now from the jerking torch for me to look at the sleeper. The gruesome sights in the deep well kept trying to drag my eyes past the wood and down to the horribly fascinating mess at the bottom. I made myself judge the distance
from the well’s crumbly edge to my silver missile. The length that would lash upwards was about the same as the aperture’s exit was high, more or less. But any more or any less and the beautiful model would smash into the chamber wall. And he’d hear it go, and guess something was wrong. He’d see me move, anyway, and let fly. The torch went out. I had to remember the distances. Maybe the distance was too small? Maybe I’d misjudged . . . I almost bent down to move the silver piece back an inch. My mouth was dry as a rasp.

The torch came on suddenly, so near I felt I could have reached out and touched it. Too late. I stood with my trembling arms raised, blinded. I’d forgotten. How can you judge if a goon’s in position if you’re blinded? Oh, Christ. I closed my eyes. I’d have to listen. But if his head actually projected into the chamber he would be able to look down and see his mate Jim decomposing below. Then he’d kill me. Never mind then what happened to the silver or to the goon. I’d be gone. So I had to step off and let the sleeper tilt upwards when he was all but within reach.

‘Keep like that, Lovejoy.’ Shuffle, shuffle.

I opened my eyes. The torch blinded me. It looked near yet no nearer. I couldn’t gauge distances any more from dazzle. Then I heard a faint splash from the well below. A fragment of the aperture lip must have fallen. So it must have been pushed, by the goon framed in the aperture.
Now.
I simply stepped back off the huge wooden beam.

All hell seemed let loose. Wood tore my left shin with enormous force. The well quivered and shook. A brick clattered on the carriage. All in a second, dust filled the chamber and a terrible rushing noise came from somewhere far below. A deep thud came
instantaneously, and a thick sucking sound. The torch went out. I opened my eyes, squinting and terrified, and crouched clinging to the iron rail in case the whole bloody floor fell away from under me. My mind screeched, stay still, stay
still.
Maybe the silver had somehow missed him and crashed into the dried mud and he was just waiting me out. A standoff. I tried not to choke on the dust, but I had to breathe. That set me spluttering and coughing, giving myself away. Then I fell silent. The mud below stopped popping and sucking. The sleeper was probably sinking into it forever. I felt sick. There was no sound.

Silently, I inched my way along the rail. The gap beneath felt like outer space. If the swine was still there . . . I touched the mud wall ahead and used it to support my forward weight balancing on the rail. I wobbled up straight shakily and stretched out into the blackness. The lip of the aperture felt covered by a folded coat. My touch produced no movement. Nothing. I carefully pulled at the coat. It came free, and I let it fall, making sure no precious silver object went into the well with it. That left only a long hole with a goon in it. I could hear nothing breathing. I reached out.

My hand touched my luscious silver, the cold, beautiful metal. It was embedded in something sticky and running with warm slime. Relief and nausea made me momentarily dizzy. Hard warm splinters of shattered skull-bone pricked at me. I pulled the silver free with difficulty. Still balancing on the rail and leaning on the mud-wall I tore off my shirt and singlet to wrap the silver in. I slithered back and regained the carriage, cautiously clutching the bundle and sat exhausted, my hands sticky with congealing mess, on the carriage chair as the Right Honourable Jonathan
Chase had so many years ago. I’m not sure, but I think I blacked out for a while, even though all I wanted was to get the hell out.

The funny thing is it never occurred to me that I’d actually made it. All I could think of was that I was entombed deep in a hill and sick of trying to get myself not killed by everybody. Getting the goon out of the crawl-way was a nightmare of ugliness. I don’t know what happened to the torch or his gun because I never found them. It must have taken me hours to pull him free. I stopped a million times to be sick. Hell can’t be as bad, that’s for sure. The silver had pierced his face, rammed through the facial structure and created a terrible porridge of bone slivers and tissue. His shoulders kept sticking as I pulled and pulled. When he finally tumbled, like a cork from a bottle, I was nearly carried down into the frigging well with him. He seemed all limbs. I just managed to get both arms wound round the rail when his falling body made me overbalance. The metal sagged but held, creaking and bouncing slightly. As his body glugged and squelched, far down, I thought a weary prayer for him. People have to do whatever lights their candle. I admit that. Pity that his had snuffed out, but that wasn’t my fault, wash? The way out was open and free.

T
HE ONLY DIFFERENCE
in the outer chamber was that I could see the bottom of the well-shaft down which I’d climbed. Very vaguely, but definitely. My eyes must have become accustomed to the faint washes of light, such as they were. I could see the rail lines in the grey-black on the ground under the shaft. I never glanced back once I came out through the aperture. My clothesline lay in a heap, but there was a natty rope ladder dangling, twice as long as needed. They’d come better prepared than I had. I fell over it from trying to go easy, frightening myself because I still couldn’t bring myself to trust the floor. They’d brought a pick and shovel. There was a spare torch, but I didn’t need extra weight any more. And I wasn’t too keen on inspecting myself, either, I knew I’d come through smeared with blood, brains, caked with dried mud. And some of the blood was mine. My feet felt swollen. To my surprise I was limping.

I unwrapped the silver engine and used the only legitimate water I owned. I peed on the object to wash it, then dried it on my socks. My singlets and shirt I left there. The engine just fitted into my underpants. I held one hem in my teeth, making sure it was evenly
contained and wouldn’t slip out of the leg holes. There was no question of resting. When you’re in a tomb the first thing is to get out.

The distance between each brick foothold felt enormous at the start of the upward climb. My heart was banging like a train. I had to pause and hold on every second reach, and it wasn’t just that I was going up this time, not down. I was simply done for. Time had gone, yet without me knowing how. In fact, I was so useless that I almost nodded off in mid-climb from weariness as the shaft curved towards the horizontal. The silver piece nearly slid out of the cloth, but I held it between my chest and the brickwork until I got myself straight again. I could see light ahead. Lovely, dazzling, glaring light. I crawled forward on my hands and knees, grinning, weary but jubilant.

Astonishing, it was still daylight. I caught on the edge of the hole, blinded by the brilliance of the grey overcast sky. One last haul got me up and sprawled panting on the stubby grass under the gorse bush. I could have wept with relief.

‘It’s Lovejoy. The bastard’s naked.’

Fergus and Jake were smoking cigarettes further up the hill, and staring incredulously down at me. They appeared set for a long wait, judging from the scattered fag ends and the sandwich wrappings blowing about. Both rose, Fergus on a stick. I almost fell back in the hole.

‘You’re in a fucking mess, Lovejoy.’ Fergus wasn’t beaming any more.

Jake asked, bewildered, ‘Where’s Jim and Cooney?’

With a squeal I turned and staggered at a low run as he moved at me, and plunged downhill through the gorse line. If I could reach the pub ahead of them I’d
survive. People would be on the road by now, surely to God. I heard Jake give a shout. Then they were after me, shouting and swearing at each other. Down on the road a car crawled by. I tried waving, but nearly dropped my prize. Anyhow, stopping to help a filthy blood-smeared maniac sprinting down a hillside is nobody’s idea of a tea-time tryst. So I just ran and ran down, really only falling forwards and forcing my legs to be there to catch me. This way I kept going, but only just.

With two hundred yards to go to the pub car park I glanced back. Jake was nearer. I found myself slowing, though I tried to keep going. Weariness enveloped me. I’d not make it. I was gasping this to myself when Elspeth Haverill suddenly rose in my way, just rose out of the ground, her eyes wide. She gave a faint scream. I collided with her and we rolled over, down in the tussocky grass. I cut myself yet again, this time on her frigging clip-board.

‘Fergus.’ Jake had halted uncertainly when I looked at them. Fergie was limping after, eyes hard. Elspeth was trying to compose herself. She was frightened stiff.

‘Lovejoy!’ She gazed at me, open-mouthed. There were small piles of clothing laid out in a row in front of her.

Fergus waved to his mate. ‘Get it, Jake.’

I sat down, bone weary. I’d had enough. I thought of throwing Elspeth the silver, but she was winded by our collision.

‘Right.’

They were moving down towards us slowly, Jake first, when I heard it. It was lovely. A beautiful sound of footsteps plodding and flopping along the hillside, and the rasping sound of middle-age in the torment of
exercise. Round the hill, flabby and rotund, trundled six of Elspeth’s runners. They were dishevelled and looked pathetic, but I’d never seen a lovelier sight.

I couldn’t even rise to watch them come. They were on us in a few weak strides. They slowed to a stop and stood panting, staring. One pointed at me in astonishment, his belly heaving, and his sweating face a mottled purple. I must have looked in a hell of a state. The others edged closer. One, brighter than the rest, glanced at Jake and Fergus, back to Elspeth and me. Then he stepped closer and picked up a stone. Two others did the same. It wasn’t much of an army, but for the first time in my life my side outnumbered everybody else’s. Jake looked at Fergus. Fergus looked at Jake.

‘Here,’ I wheezed suddenly. ‘What are you doing?’

Elspeth was fiddling with my middle.

‘Putting this towel round you, Lovejoy.’ Of course. I was naked.

I let her. We all watched Jake and Fergus turn and go. Their car was parked across the rear of mine. I couldn’t have got it out unless they shifted theirs first, anyway. We saw Jake heave a cobblestone through my windscreen. He looked back at us defiantly. I bowed to annoy them as they pulled out.

‘What’s all this about, Miss Haverill?’ the front runner asked.

‘This gentleman fell down a crevice in the hillside,’ Elspeth said glibly. In the forecourt below the car started. One or two of them thought to ask more but Elspeth wasn’t having any. She clicked a stopwatch.

‘I would remind you that it’s
twice
round,’ she instructed. ‘Starting now.’

The team plodded off, some casting glances back at
me. I watched Fergie’s car out of sight, going towards town along the river road.

‘I owe you, love,’ I told Elspeth.

‘What happened up there, Lovejoy?’

‘Tell you later. Look. What do I do?’ If I set off in my crate in this state I’d be arrested at the first traffic lights.

‘Sit here and rest,’ she commanded. ‘You’re exhausted. When the others come back, I’ll take you home. We’ll pretend you’re one of my exercise team, and that you fell and hurt yourself. I have a sponge bag and towel. We can get some of that filth off in the meantime. What
is
it? Maybe my men can lend you some spare clothes, if they have any.’

‘Why are you here?’ I lay on the grass, clutching the silver still wrapped in my underpants. ‘I thought the run was from the surgery.’

‘Oh, I fancied a change.’ She got a cold wet sponge and started on my legs. ‘I knew you’d come here, you see. From your questions. I went to your cottage, then drove here and saw your old motor. So I fetched my runners along.’

‘What if I hadn’t showed up?’ I asked from curiosity. ‘What would you have done?’

‘Mind your own business.’ She squeezed the sponge over my middle and made me gasp. She tapped my silver. ‘Is that toy train what you were looking for?’

I looked at the exquisite silver engine properly for the first time, holding it up against the sky from my supine position. Quite like an offering to a world full of beautiful space and air and light.

‘Yes. Isn’t it beautiful?’

‘Quite nice,’ she said critically. ‘But it’s bent.’

I said, ‘So it is. Wonder how that happened?’

*

Elspeth got me home. One of the runners promised to drop my crate off at the White Hart for Tinker to collect. A sweaty track-suit was provided from somewhere.

‘You know,’ I explained as she drove, ‘Poor old Jonathan Chase must have had a nerve.’

‘Can’t you put that toy on the back seat, Lovejoy?’

I was holding it in my lap. I trusted her, but said, ‘It’s too valuable.’

I wondered about the respectable Right Honourable gentleman. He had obviously arranged for an explosion to take place and cause a landslip. Of course, his plan was a risk. I felt a twinge of my subterranean fear return momentarily, and wound the window down for air. In fact, it nearly killed him outright. The plan was to halt the little carriage at the one fixed reinforced spot of the tunnel that had withstood the earth’s subtle shifts from time immemorial. That was where the tunnel bisected the well-shaft.