Life Goes On (50 page)

By nine o'clock a peaceful dusk was seeping in. I don't know why, but it struck me that a yellow Rolls-Royce was an unusual car to use on such a stunt, a vehicle you would never steal if you wanted to get far without being caught. A cop-chopper would spot it from two thousand feet. We should have had Escorts or Cortinas, or a Morris that you couldn't pick out from twenty miles away.

While waiting in position I fed Dismal a Mars Bar. He loved them, the only disadvantage being that he licked my hand afterwards to show his thanks and appreciation. Someone flashed me from behind. It was George in car C, going to take up his station half a mile south. I assumed that cars A and B were already preparing to do their stuff. I flashed George before he could turn the bend.

Another fact which came to me – and all the more sharply for being too late to be of use – was that I had committed my life into the hands of as big a set of numbskulls as it would be possible to find on God's earth. They must have done a hundred years of bird between them, and if that didn't prove their incompetence I don't know what did. Yet who else could Moggerhanger have chosen? Even I had done my share. Those who had never been inside would be even less competent. Nor would they be so daft.

If Bill Straw, who I regarded as the most sensible bloke I knew, had volunteered to give a helping hand, it hadn't been for gain, or a desire to practise his profession, but merely to have a bit of fun at the shoot-out, and then vanish into the countryside in order to test his ability at getting back to base undetected. Once a Sherwood Forester, always a Sherwood Forester. To Bill Straw, crime was the logical extension of an orienteering exercise, and in that sense I looked on him as being the typical Englishman – one also to whom the notion of class had no meaning.

Such reflections were too late. I was in it up to my neck. Even if I abandoned the Roller and made off with Dismal I'd be a marked man. The clock said it was a minute to nine, and I was on the left hand side of the road facing north, as instructed. A cloud of gnats danced above an elderberry bush. A sparrow flew over a patch of fully flowered nettles.

I was drowsy, so Dismal yawned. The western sky was pink high up and red below. Half a minute went by. I was roused by a car coming towards me with all lights on, swaying on its way south. Cottapilly with bulging eyes was at the wheel of car B, Toffeebottle and Pindarry in the back, poised to make the frontal assault. They were late, hence the hurry. Where the hell had they been? Kenny Dukes and Jericho Jim should already be out of Snowdrop Wood and approaching the farm, to take it from the rear – unsupported, unless they too were late. ‘It doesn't bode well,' I said to Dismal, who was asleep.

It would be futile to go back step by step and find out how I got into such a situation. Far better, I decided, to prepare the Roller to expect the load shortly to be thrown into it. I got out and opened the boot, and stood smoking another cigar. Since Moggerhanger would be lucky to see the car again, I saw no point in stinting myself. Dismal thrashed about the hedge after rabbits and partridges, maybe hoping for a fox. The time was five minutes past nine. The assault on Buckshot Farm should have been finished, in theory.

The light was dim enough to warrant the hazard blinkers on. They made the car more conspicuous than I would have liked, but in case the lads had difficulty locating me in the gloaming they would serve as navigation beacons. I fancied I heard a series of light cracks from the south, and my guts iced up at the notion of deadly Two-two going into action. The flatter echo of shotguns may have been from a party of farmer's men after rabbits for the pot. I'd heard such sounds frequently on a summer's evening from the open windows of Upper Mayhem.

At nine fifteen I began to worry, though not unduly. If Bill Straw had been in my place he would probably have had the stove out, calmly brewing a can of tea, as befitted an ex-Sherwood Forester, and be lying on his groundsheet scanning chapter one of a Sidney Blood novel. Ten minutes later he would blow out his stub of candle and turn in till midnight, when he would wake up, mash tea again, fold his bivvy, and steal off into the night to do twenty miles across country by dawn, before hot-wiring a car at a service station and melting into London by daylight.

I got Dismal back in the car and shut the door, settling him down with a blanket underneath and one on top. A possible future development would have been to have the stuff loaded, but with Dismal playing hard to get, me giving chase over six fields and becoming more and more exhausted as every horizon scintillated with the flashing blue lights of cop cars.

I was reading the clock by the minute. Either there was so much loot that they needed more time to load than had been anticipated (though with four such beefy bastards I didn't see how this could be) or the attack had failed and, with one dead, two wounded, one prisoner and one missing (but being hunted for) they had conceded defeat and the venture was off as they beat a retreat to a late supper at Watford Gap cafeteria. If so, how would I know? And if I couldn't know, how long should I wait?

By twenty past nine I considered going south to reconnoitre, yet such a move would be foolhardy, because no doubt as soon as I set off, car B would pass me, and wouldn't find me in position to transfer the goods. Confucius might say that flexibility furthered, but in that case it would only confuse us. The cigar began to taste like shit. To take my mind off matters, I mulled on my encounter with Frances Malham, less than a week ago, but it seemed ten years. If I came out of this lunatic expedition in one piece, or even two, I would find her, and renew our acquaintance. Her face haunted the darkening air and lifted me so much out of anxiety that I hardly noticed a pick-up truck coming towards me, a rainbow light flashing from above the cab. It stopped a yard behind the Roller.

Kenny Dukes, hair matted with blood, jumped out shouting: ‘You've had it easy, haven't you, mate?' He wanted to kill me for it.

Parkhurst slid off the back. He had bruises on his face and a sleeve of his jacket torn away. Toffeebottle came out of the other side and banged into the cab door, unable to see with his closed left eye.

Twenty-Five

‘What happened?'

Parkhurst threw the first parcel across. ‘Complete success.'

‘They broke me fingers,' Toffeebottle moaned, who nevertheless was able to play pass-the-parcel with the rest of us, during which five minutes I gathered that Kenny Dukes and Jericho Jim had come out of Snowdrop Wood on time, but hearing no roar from car B shooting along the lane to the front of Buckshot Farm, lay concealed in dead ground, spitting tacks with impatience. Parkhurst, who had debussed them half an hour before, instead of stationing himself at the junction as he'd been told, watched for car B driving up to the farm, and then followed it along in case they needed him as a reinforcement. It was as well that he did. That bit of flexible thinking proved him a true son of Moggerhanger. Both cars were spotted as they came up the lane. A shotgun appeared at an upstairs window, but Moggerhanger's stalwarts zig-zagged in lizard fashion up to the house and reached the door unhurt.

At such a racket Kenny Dukes and Jericho Jim threw down their fags and slid in by a back door to do their stuff. They disarmed two men who had shotguns, but there were more members of the Green Toe Gang than had been expected, and a struggle took place. The first thing Parkhurst did when he came in was clip the telephone cable, then knee one of the blokes who reached for a walkie-talkie. He hurled the radio out of the window, atmospherics crackling in the evening air. There was fighting all over the house, and a Green Toe bloke who got outside threw a match in the petrol tank of the Jaguar, which blew up. The second car was also damaged, but not so seriously that they couldn't use it. ‘I've known worse cock-ups, let me tell you,' said Parkhurst.

A cold breeze wafted over the hedge. The drivers of the few passing cars must have chuckled at the thought of a broken-down Rolls-Royce. The flashing light of the pickup truck was a godsend, though we were lucky that the local cop car didn't stop on its nightly trundle and ask if we were all right, though maybe Lanthorn had told them to stay longer at their tea and darts that night.

Parkhurst slammed the boot and gave a loud laugh suggesting that, in his element, he had come back to life. ‘Take it away, Michael, all three million. Or is it four? Don't hit a petrol tanker head on, or fall asleep at the wheel, or get it on a boat for Spain, either. God wouldn't like it.'

‘He'd get his wrist slapped for a thing like that,' Toffeebottle laughed, still hugging his fingers.

My blood dropped forty degrees. ‘I've got to get some fun out of my dull life.'

Jericho hee-hawed. We were having a wonderful time. We laughed all over the road, a birthday of back-slapping. Kenny was pissing himself with the giggles, his matted head, old razor scars, missing teeth and octopus arms showing plainly in the headlights of the pick-up. Toffeebottle jumped into the cab and sounded the horn. I got into the Roller and sounded mine, two lighthouses talking through fog. Dismal lifted his head, and I pushed him down. He howled, and they fell about with more laughter, thinking I was imitating a dog. Probably the whole village was listening, and wondering if they would be on telly next day.

I shot off, with no preliminary revving-up. I poked Dismal again. ‘Don't show your napper, or you might get a bullet through it.'

I was on my way, no pursuit cars behind, not even an escort vehicle to bid me farewell. They didn't give a fuck now that things were more or less all right. After a mile I took the first turning left and set a compass course west-north-west towards Peppercorn Cottage, about a hundred miles away. I felt so relieved I almost hit a hedge, but the left front wheel bumped the verge – and shot me into the clear. It woke Dismal. ‘Nothing wrong,' I said. ‘Go back to sleep.'

On my own I might get careless and let my eyes close, hit a wall, shoot a cliff, scrape a tanker and burst into flames, but I couldn't let anything happen to Dismal, an animal who hadn't done anyone a ha'porth of harm – well, not knowingly. He licked my hand and lay down again.

The Green Toe Gang would break free from their boxroom. One of them must have run to the nearest phone booth to report. But who to? What tight-lipped, blue-eyed, fair haired eminence with dark glasses would lift the phone and hear those urgent pips before whoever called got the ten-pence in? I'd have given a lot to know who he was, then I could have formulated his response to the raid, and done something to avoid whatever might be put in my way. We had come out of the raid well, and me best of all, with little worry and not even a scratch, and here I was in my motorised palace, central heating on and a cigar in my mouth, and a dog curled up on the mat, trying to read
The Times
, driving into the peace of a dark pink sunset with goods to the value of millions in the boot.

Things had gone too well. It was time to think, and take evasive action. If the head of the Green Toe Gang had a halfway decent intelligence section he would know about Moggerhanger's various hideouts. His know-how hadn't been good enough to warn him of the raid, but that was another matter. Defeat sharpened the faculties. Whoever he was he would be stung into a bout of clear thinking. He would know about Back Enderby, Spleen Manor and Peppercorn Cottage. He would look at his RAC motoring map and make a big black mark at each location. Then he would put his finger on Buckshot Farm, and he would see that Peppercorn Cottage was farthest away, and he might be inspired into believing that the loot-laden car was heading there. He would alert any motorised henchmen who happened to be in the Midlands and tell them to block my progress along the A5.

Our tactics had been sound enough to have the yellow Roller parked well away from the scene of operations, so they wouldn't know what make of car to look for. In any case it was dark. My respect for Moggerhanger increased by the minute. Even so, I was taking no chances. What if one of our own lads knew who to phone so as to get the Green Toe Gang on my trail? The outlook was unlikely but, being totally untrustworthy myself, I knew that in this kind of racket you couldn't trust anyone.

Then again, even though there was little chance of intercepting me en route, whoever was head of the Green Toe Gang had only to send a car to wait at Peppercorn Cottage. The fact that you had to think of everything didn't faze me. I would deal with such a calamity when I came to it. At the moment I was only interested in convincing George's car, or Parkhurst's car – either of which might be following (and the occasional vehicle did come up and overtake) – that I was a good lad who was doing what he was told by taking, as anyone could see, the road to Peppercorn Cottage.

Half an hour later, I swung off the main road and made my way into Nuneaton. I played around the place for ten minutes to make sure nobody was on my trail, then went south along a straight bit of dual carriageway at seventy miles an hour, crossed the M6, and got into Coventry. Easy as pie, as Bill might say. I wasn't followed, nor would I be ambushed. I was off everybody's radar screen except my own, and that was how I liked it, for as long as I could believe it was true.

My plan was to trundle via Warwick, Bromsgrove, Kidderminster, Ludlow and Knighton, passing the Black Country to the south instead of the north. Then I would strike northerly to reach the vicinity of Peppercorn Cottage, a tricky route to follow at night, but they didn't call me Tactical Jack for nothing. The hands of the clock glowed half past ten.

‘Dismal,' I said, ‘you're a clever dog, but why can't you read a map? One bark for left, two for right, and a howl for stop? With me driving, we'd get on like a car on fire.'

He staggered up, and snuffled around. Before leaving Upper Mayhem I'd thrown in six tins of Bogie left over from a pup that got run down by a van five years ago. Dismal couldn't talk, but I could sense he wanted food, even if only because he was bored, so I would have to stop and victual him soon. I wasn't hurrying, but my progress was good. At the rate I was going I would hit Peppercorn Cottage at two in the morning. My orders were to wait there, but like hell I would. The fact that I didn't like the place had nothing to do with the rats.