I went into the kitchen. ‘It’s a lovely house.’
She smiled, tense and flushed. ‘Ron’s lucky.’
‘He isn’t in his study.’
She folded paper napkins and set one by each plate. ‘He must be somewhere.’
‘Give one to Dismal. He likes to sit at table with the rest of us.’
She took me seriously. ‘All right.’
‘All this house needs,’ I said, ‘is a telephone. Then you wouldn’t need to go to the crossroads every time.’
Her hand trembled. ‘We never phone. We don’t need to.’
I knocked a bottle of wine onto the floor, as if by accident. My guts were hot with murder. Dismal leapt up at the smash. ‘Sorry about that.’
‘I’ll clear it up.’
I pushed her aside. ‘You must need to, sometime.’
She was beginning to catch on. ‘What’s got into you?’
‘Delphick’s gone to phone, hasn’t he?’
‘You’re off your rocker.’
‘Do you want to be a basket case?’
She stood, cloth in one hand, pan and brush ready. She was frightened. ‘No.’
‘He’s telephoning Moggerhanger, isn’t he? If they catch me here, I’ll be a basket case.’ There was nothing else I could say, and nothing she would tell me. I ordered Dismal out of the door. She backed away, hands protecting her face. As if we had been married twenty years, I could no longer stand the sight of her. I got hold of the table, and sent plates, bottles, food and cutlery flying to the four points of the room. She and Delphick could feed off that.
Twenty-Seven
Clegg and Wayland walked in from the trees. ‘Get in the car,’ I said. ‘We’re leaving.’
Dismal snugged down immediately in the back as if it was more home to him than any of us. I told them in a few words what had happened. ‘They’ll be here any minute, and if they catch us they’ll cut us into little pieces and feed us to the pigs.’
I heard June crying, as I stood by the kitchen wondering whether to go in and apologise, or set fire to the house. I had a vision of Delphick puzzled as to where the smoke was coming from as he walked back from the phone booth. Life was too short, dangers too pressing. I felt the chill wind of the gasworks around me, that same old grandad breeze that at dread moments pushes me back into reality.
My natural fuck-you-jack-I’m-all-right ebullience immediately shot me out of it but, just the same, the fix I was in was tightening. Pull off a stunt like robbing Claud Moggerhanger of his ill-gotten gains, and you find you have no friend to shield you. I’d expected this, of course, which was why I had gone to Doggerel Bank, but it was just my luck to find June there. She was the sentimental sort that made the world go round a bit faster because she couldn’t forget a good turn. And she was right, in spite of the fact that it might be the death of me.
Clegg accepted that we must leave, and got into the car. Ten years of adversity had made him easy-going, but Wayland was cantankerous: ‘How do you know he’s gone to phone Moggerhanger?’
‘June will tell you.’
He stood there sourly. ‘I thought we were set for a party? Is this place too dull for your excitable temperament?’
I was at the wheel, and switched on. ‘I don’t particularly like you, but I wouldn’t like to see you kicked around so much that your girlfriend wouldn’t recognise you. You won’t be in a very good shape to write your article —’
‘Documentary.’
‘— if you stay here. On the other hand, you’ll have some first class material. Take your choice.’
I was glad when he got in. The more we were, the safer I felt. I drove towards the stream, and as I turned a bend saw out of my mirror the glint of a car coming down the lane behind. I had slid so quickly under cover that he hadn’t seen me. Or so I thought. I couldn’t understand how they had got here so quickly, though there was no mystery when I worked it out. Delphick had gone up the hill two hours ago. Moggerhanger phoned Spleen Manor on hearing from him, then phoned Delphick back at the box and told him to wait so that he could guide the car from Spleen Manor down to Doggerel Bank. Otherwise they would never have found it. Moggerhanger was nothing if not quick of thought. The fact that he could put me to shame in the matter was one reason why he was where he was and why I was where I was.
The car went so fast over the stream at the bottom of the hill that a bow-wave hit trees and bushes on either side. I slurped up that half-paved track like a rally driver, bumping against roots and jerking into potholes. The way curved between trees which cut out the light, so I gave it the big beams. After a straight bit across a field, a solid five-barred gate blocked us from the road. Clegg jumped out with the agility of a much younger man, unravelled the chain, and dragged it open. ‘Get back in,’ I shouted. He closed it, and looped the chain into place.
‘For God’s sake, we’re in a hurry. Let’s go.’
‘What holds us up will hold them up,’ he said as I drove off, ‘and I left that chain in a far more complicated knot than when I found it.’
The wind wasn’t faster than me around those lanes. If I’d been in any seat but the driver’s I’d have heaved my guts up. Twilight was coming on, an illuminated sheet of blue to the east, and a band of threatening vermilion to the west. I turned so much at the cool commands of Clegg’s navigation that pale blue and bloody rays seemed in every direction at once. If the car had followed us up the hill we had already lost it. If it had chased us any distance I hoped the manoeuvres had curdled Ronald Delphick’s innards. Not that I thought either he or his stomach were tender. In my view he was as tough as old iron, though he would need to be even harder if I caught up with him.
The direction was southerly. Clegg turned round. ‘They’re still after us.’
‘Are you certain?’
Being in the lead, we had the harder job. All the other car had to do was look for the scintillating roses of our brake lights and stay locked on. All we had to do was pick out the twisting wink of their dazzlers to know they were still with us. Even Dismal was tense. If I’d been alone in the car I’d have used all my shoe leather on the pedal, but such bad driving would have been hard on the others. In meeting so few cars we could not confuse our pursuers and throw them off the trail. The way the car was sticking to us, even though some distance off, suggested that it was driven by Pindarry.
‘We can’t edge so far west,’ Clegg said, ‘or we’ll be on the moors. But if we can hold them off for twenty miles we’ll have a better chance.’
My brain was melting through lack of sleep. We went a mile without turning. Clegg’s cool instructions to go left and then right brought the adrenalin back. ‘Do you feel like giving it the gun?’
‘If you two don’t mind.’
‘I’m prepared for anything,’ Wayland said eagerly.
‘In that case,’ Clegg said, ‘I’m going to take you onto the main road for ten miles or so. Slow down a bit. You’re going through a village.’
A pretty picture it was, fit for a tin of biscuits going to India. ‘If anyone gets pulled up for speeding,’ Clegg said, ‘let it be them.’
I turned onto the main road and went southerly. The sweeping-brush of the pursuer’s light swept the sky behind. ‘We’ll never shift ’em.’
Clegg was so maddeningly calm I had an impulse — luckily fought off — to stop the car and fight it out with whoever was after us. ‘Don’t despair, Michael. I can see from the map a manoeuvre which will drop them into limbo for good. We’re coming to a railway bridge. That’s it, we’ve just gone over it. Hard to feel the bump in a vehicle like this. Anyway, after a quarter of a mile — any minute now — there’ll be a sharp turn to the right. It’s only fifty yards or so after it. Then you angle ninety degrees onto a minor road to your left. We know it’s there, but for the others it’ll be concealed. Luckily, we’re still on the large scale map. I wonder how many other lives the Ordnance Survey has saved? All right! NOW! Here’s the right turn coming up.’