I was overflowing with honest irrepressible indignation, but this time it wasn’t working. Leningrad turned a knob that increased the volume of every loudspeaker in the room, so that he drowned me out. ‘You scum, liar, traitor. You’ve double-crossed us. Tell me who it was to, or I’ll kill you on the spot.’
I was going to tell him the truth, I swear I was, when the door snapped open, and a revolver shot spattered across the room. I felt it sizzle past my head, a lurch of hot wind that sent a scorching breath at my ear. It must have disconnected some line of the iron lung’s communications system, because the man inside was shouting, and no sounds came out.
Claud Moggerhanger stood at the closed door, while Kenny Dukes, gripping a huge cosh, and Slasher with hands in pockets obviously holding down some threatening weapon, rushed across to the iron lung. Slasher took whatever it was from his pocket and tackled Stanley, who was struggling with a gun. They went down at my feet, and I stepped back so that they wouldn’t dirty my boots or crease my trousers. They fought like lions and I was pleasantly surprised to see that Stanley had a lot of strength and courage in him. They rolled over, blood spurting between them, because Slasher had his blade out and was managing to weave it from time to time.
The table capsized, and forty-seven bars of gold slewed across the floor. Kenny Dukes was getting to work on the equipment of the iron lung, and a loudspeaker had come on again because Leningrad was waving his arms about inside, yelling at him to stop. But Kenny worked like an expert demolition man wanting to prove to a new employer how efficient he was at smashing iron lungs. Under the tangle of splintered equipment Jack Leningrad was firing a revolver across the room at Moggerhanger, and Claud was dodging about the floor with the agility of a man in his prime.
Screams and shots were pitching all over the place, and Stanley who seemed to be bleeding in several places at once was pleading for mercy from Slasher, but just as it seemed that Slasher was seriously thinking about it Stanley got in a kick that sent him flying across the room. Windows that had been painted over with thick black lacquer were shattered by bullets, and the whole tangle of iron lung was on the floor with the man buried in it, and Kenny Dukes still bashing away at the wreckage from above.
I lay on the floor, watching the gold, waiting my chance, and while the chaos was sweeping round me I stuffed another couple of bars in my pouches. Moggerhanger’s hand jabbed into the air when one of Leningrad’s last bullets clipped him, and for a moment he was too dazed to guard the door. With all the jack-rabbit strength in my legs I leapt out of the room, leaving yells of murder, and the heartening sound of more breaking glass behind me. My briefcase was in the vestibule and I grabbed it in a last inspired frenzy of possessiveness — before getting clear of the place for the last time.
Rather than fumble with the lift, I ran down the stairs, calming myself before reaching the exit. I walked into the street, buttoning my coat as I went up by Harrod’s and on to Brompton Road. People passed me, noticing nothing unusual, but I was bewildered, not knowing to which point of the compass I should flee. I had a vision of Upper Mayhem station, of William Hay with his boots off mashing tea in the booking office, then with his feet propped up and a novel bent back in his hands. But to go there would betray him, for I knew they’d trace me soon enough. The wild woods and open fields didn’t appeal to me, either, and neither did I care to head for Nottingham because that would bring trouble on my mother. The one person who could help was my grandmother. She’d defend me against all the gangsters of heaven and hell, never let them get near me. But my grandmother was dead, so no help could be expected from that quarter. The fine day had turned to drizzle and low cloud. At last I got a taxi and sat inside.
‘Where to?’
‘London airport,’ I said, not thinking about it. My instinct took over, though by now I was beginning to hate its guts. I felt cut off from the roots of my intuition, and that being the case, because it definitely seemed so, I sensed a sort of resurgence coming out of the shock and panic, a hope that once more my organism would reform and provide me with the ability to grapple at the unexpected. I didn’t want to think. If you think, I told myself as the taxi made a fair lick west along Cromwell Road, you cut yourself off from luck and the benefit of action.
There was still time to get the Geneva plane, and I had the ticket in my pocket, as well as five bars of gold that would see me right for a year or two. I was already planning my future. I’d sell the gold, open an account with the money in Zurich, buy a few old clothes and a rucksack, call myself a student of languages, then hole up in some quiet town and wait for what came my way. I’d grow a moustache and a beard, and as long as I paid my bills and lived an uneventful life no one would bother me. With only five bars of gold Brazil was out, for a bit of travel there would eat up most of it. In any case I’d feel safer not too far from Moggerhanger’s claws than I would if I were to drop myself conspicuously in some such exotic place. Later I’d get in touch with Bridgitte, though not for a while. As for Polly, it seemed as if she was out of my life for ever.
I sat back calmly as we reached a bit of green on the edge of London, smoked a cigar, and checked my ticket. It was real. My brain settled itself into accepting this new and unexpected future. I certainly hated Moggerhanger’s guts, and couldn’t wait to get a good distance between us. The last information I’d passed on had set him working so hastily to get Pindarry and Cottapilly cooked that he’d nearly caused a bullet to be put through my own head. His sense of loyalty was even worse than mine, so we should never have met, and all I could want in my eternal hopefulness was that he’d now be glad to see the back of me.
I dropped a fiver to the taxi man and hurried in to have my ticket checked. There was exactly enough time. It was a quiet day in the Airline Transit Camp, and I walked calmly into the departure hall with ticket and passport ready. The idea of saying goodbye to the island for a long time boosted my spirit because the morass would be behind me and emptiness in front, just as it had been when I’d set out from Nottingham and tried my luck down the Great North Road. Perhaps someone like me needed this shot-launch into the wide-open spaces every few years.
My ticket was clipped, and I walked across the space to show my passport with a smile. The customs man was watching me, but I went by him without trouble into the waiting-room. A sudden great hunger scooped a hollow in my stomach, and I stood looking at the cafeteria counter, wondering, whether to knock down a couple of double brandies and a few cream cakes before my number was called, or whether to sit calmly and contemplate the last of England from the plate-glass windows beyond which a misty rain smoked across the runways. I felt a pang at leaving Polly, though I couldn’t believe I’d absolutely seen the last of her, hoping that at some future time kind Fate would enable us to meet again. Then there was Bridgitte and Smog, who in some ways I thought more softly on, and I wondered how the three of us would ever meet. I saw matronly Bridgitte in ten years’ time travelling with a sixteen-year-old youth through a north Italian town, the pair of them getting off a bus in some sunny and dusty piazza. I would be lazily painting at an easel on which a few pigeons rested. I’d go over to them, and Smog would be very protective to Bridgitte and wonder who the hell I thought I was, trying to get off with her, but Bridgitte would recognize me, and I’d invite them back to my simple room, by which time Smog would have remembered me perfectly and with great affection.