In his dressing-gown Taffy lay on the bare mattress, arms straight at his sides, watching the light fade through the net curtains. The streetlamp came on, throwing a yellow trapezium on the flowered wallpaper and the pale areas where the pictures had hung, and, as if this was the signal triggering something in his brain, Taffy got up and began the final stage.
Opening his Airborne-issue bergen rucksack, he laid out his kit on the bed. DPM Para smock, olive green denim trousers, 'Hairy' KF woollen shirt, '58 pattern webbing order, cloth puttees, DMS rubber-soled boots, green lanyard for compass, maroon belt with regimental badge in bright metal on the circular buckle, maroon beret with matt-black cap badge. All present and correct, sah!
Taffy unscrewed the lid off the black boot polish and worked up a nice smooth paste with a globule of spit. Dipped the yellow cloth into it, set to with a will, bulling up the toe-caps. In the silent, darkened room Taffy polished industriously away, a frown of rapt concentration on his face.
'What time is it?'
Dillon, dressed only in jockey shorts and socks, carrying his uniform on a hanger, halted in mid-creep halfway across the bedroom floor. Susie's eyes watched him from above the covers as he hung the uniform on the wardrobe door. Dillon arched his back and crawled into bed with a groan. 'After two… I got terrible backache.'
'What time are you on in the morning?'
'Seven-thirty.' Dillon tried to relax, let the tension flow out of him. 'We've been sittin' in that car for twelve hours solid
'Well,' Susie retorted, 'at least you're sitting down.'
'Might have known I'd get no sympathy from you,' Dillon mumbled sleepily. He stretched and made a noise somewhere between a yawn and a groan, and snuggled down, totally whacked.
Crash!
From downstairs, but loud enough to wake the dead, Steve falling in through the front door, colliding with the bikes in the hall and thudding headlong to the floor.
Floating away on the soft pink billow of deep wonderful sleep, Dillon came bolt upright in the bed, eyes sticking out like organ stops. Another thud, clang of bike frames, and Dillon, realizing what it was, flopped back, the pillow over his head.
Steve, muttering drunkenly to himself, was now attempting the impossible, death-defying ascent of the stairs. Halfway up he missed his footing and tumbled to the bottom, landing with a thud that jarred the floorboards and made the wardrobe door swing open.
From the boys' room, a shrill plaintive 'Muuuu-mmmmmm!'
With a heavy sigh, Susie whopped the bedcovers aside and prepared to get up. Dillon whopped them back again.
'Leave it – just leave it!'
'But it sounds like he's fallen downstairs…'
'Good! Hope he's broken his ruddy neck!'
CHAPTER 12
There was a red line around Dillon's forehead where his cap had been. He drummed his fingers on the steering-wheel, glancing every now and then at Steve, bent over in the passenger seat with a Little Chef road map spread across his knees, marking the motorways with a felt-tip. Bloody wonder they'd ever got here. And how long had it taken them – over two hours? Jesus wept.
Dillon kept a wary eye on the clients, just in case. Three bags full, sir, that was the drill. At the moment they were on the farside of the cobbled yard, talking to a tall thin man wearing baggy cord trousers and a polo-necked sweater under a tweed jacket, trainer or stable manager, Dillon guessed. He didn't know it for a fact, but the horses all looked like thoroughbreds, a row of glossy necks and proud heads arched over the stable doors, lively, intelligent brown eyes. He wondered how many of them Ali Baba owned.
Dillon wrinkled his nose. Was that horseshit or what?
He said, 'And for chrissakes, Steve, make sure we get the right route back to London. We go the same way we got here, we'll never get back.' He leaned nearer, suspicions confirmed. 'An' I told you, use some deodorant, you stink!'
Steve sniffed his armpits. 'It's not me!' he protested, and nearly poked a hole through the map with his pen. 'Your fault – you said Newmarket was near Ascot!'
'Give. You always were bloody useless on directions.' Dillon snatched the map off him and glared at it with weary disgust. Thirty-grand silver Merc and they were using a Little Chef free road map to ferry their clients the length and breadth of the Home Counties…
'I told you, Steve, get a decent map… we need to check how we're going for gas.' There was a low rasping sound as Steve released a fart. 'Very funny,' Dillon said. He glanced worriedly at the fuel gauge. 'We got any cash?'
'I'm skint.'
'We can't ask them.' Dillon looked across the cobbled yard to the two Arabs. The slim dapper one, Salah Al-Gharib, was beckoning, his gold ring winking in the sunlight. 'Hey, they want you.' Dillon nudged Steve. 'Go on. I'll check the route.'
Grumbling, Steve climbed out, and shambled over. Dillon swore, long and loud, discovering his squashed cap Steve had been sitting and farting on. He bashed it into shape, too busy straightening the bent peak to notice Steve was shaking his foot in the air, having trodden in a heap of fresh horse dung.
The black and chrome JVC stereo deck (nearly five hundred quid's worth) was the first item on the agenda. It smashed through the upstairs window and landed on the concrete path, disintegrating in a tangled heap of plastic and metal and solid-state circuitry.
Taffy stood at the broken window, spick and span in parade-drill order, maroon beret pulled low over the left eye in the approved Parachute Regiment manner, and let fly with a stream of tapes, CDs and records, showering down over the scrubby patch of lawn. A portable TV set followed, and a transistor radio followed that, hurled out with a methodical calm efficiency that was strangely at odds with the crazed, wide-eyed expression on Taffy's face.
The front door opened and the phantom drummer shot out, dreadlocks flying, a look of sheer terror in his eyes. He stumbled down the path, screaming abuse as a bass drum smashed an even bigger hole in the window and scored a direct hit on the garden gnome casting his rod in the flower bed. Out sailed the rest of the drum-kit, hi-hat cymbals setting up one hell of a racket as they skimmed and bounced into the road.
Mary came out of the kitchen next door and ran screaming round the side of the house, arriving to see Taffy emerging through the front door. 'Oh God Almighty – what have you done?'
Taffy strode down the garden path, kicking the mangled remains of the stereo deck out of his way. 'Got some peace and quiet,' Taffy said. 'That's what I've done.'
He turned sharp left through the gate, straightened his shoulders, and setting his beret at the correct angle, marched off.
'Where are you going?… Taff?
'For a quick drink,' Taffy said, arms swinging.
Dillon was crouched forward in the passenger seat, brow furrowed, speaking on the portable phone: 'I told her this morning! I mean, what am I supposed to do, Susie? Hello…?'
He shook the handset. 'This ruddy thing keeps cutting out… Hello?' He shook it again, and this seemed to do the trick. He listened, nodding, and in a quick muttered aside to Steve: 'It's Taffy's wife again, she's freakin' out about something.' He said into the phone, 'Susie? Can you hear me…? Okay, give her this number, if she calls again, or you get her number, but Susie -'
Snap, crackle, pop.
'Bloody hell! Hello… can you hear me?'
Steve nudged his elbow. 'Here they come.'
'I got to go,' said Dillon quickly. 'Don't call me unless it's an emergency, 'cos I'm working!'
He cradled the handset and hopped out, tugging his jacket straight and squaring up his cap.
' London, sir?' Dillon asked, opening the rear door.