‘What I’m certain of is this: that when I get to Holland and disclose all I know to Interpol, Moggerhanger will never be the same again. They’ll lock him up in the Tower of London till the end of his days.’
Maria fell half fainting across the table.
‘Michael, give us a hand.’ I was surprised he was so concerned. He was stricken with anguish. ‘She’s going to spew by the look of her. Let’s get her on deck.’ He held her between us. ‘She told me she got seasick, but I hoped it would be calm. You can’t rely on anything, can you?’
‘Not even with fifty thousand pounds,’ I said. ‘You left it by the table.’
‘Oh my God!’ He ran back, and hung it over his shoulder. ‘I thought these posh boats were supposed to have stabilisers,’ he said, staggering a few feet.
I held the door open with the hook of my umbrella. ‘Don’t make much difference in the storm.’ We went to the leeward side, where only a few sprinkles reached us.
‘Let’s make her walk up and down a bit,’ he said. ‘Might bring her round. It’s funny she gets so seasick, a member of a great seafaring nation and all that.’
‘England’s oldest ally,’ I said.
He cracked me so playfully in the ribs I had to tighten the grip on my briefcase. ‘Your general knowledge is nearly as good as mine.’
The wind blew in circles, first clockwise and then anticlockwise. Fortunately, when Maria let herself go, the contents of her stomach went clear away from us. ‘You’ll never get Moggerhanger put inside,’ he said. ‘There can’t be any evidence to do it.’
‘Oh yes there is. And I’ve got it. The T’s are crossed and the I’s are dotted. I’ve got so much on Moggerhanger and his world import drug business they’ll have to build new prisons for the crowds that get pulled in.’
‘Michael,’ he said, ‘what’s the use? You can’t do it.’
He was spineless. He was inert. Or he was amoral and anti-social. He didn’t care. The trouble was, he was easygoing, and that was the reason we had stayed pals for so many years. Finally, we trusted each other. We’d always done what was best for each other. He didn’t want me to shop Moggerhanger because such an action would disturb the status quo. It would rob people like him of employment, and there were enough on the dole already. As for my own living, I was prepared to sacrifice that for the common good. ‘I’m turning him in. That’s all I’ve wanted to do for the last ten years.’
‘Michael, I won’t say it’s not right.’ He held my arm as if to prove his affection. ‘Why should I worry? I won’t go to jail. And I hope you don’t. We both could, though, but let’s not consider that for the moment. All I say is that however much evidence you’ve got, there won’t be enough.’ He chuckled. ‘If there was, you’d bring the country down.’
The sea was heaving so much I wasn’t feeling too good myself. ‘I have more than enough evidence.’
‘You haven’t,’ he said, beaming with simple good nature — or so I thought.
How dense and disbelieving could he get? However good a friend he was, the holes in his understanding were big enough to drive a lorry through. ‘Haven’t I?’ I raged. ‘Haven’t I? Don’t I?’
‘I bloody well know you haven’t,’ he shouted against a sudden change of the wind, veins standing out on his face and throat.
I fiddled with my briefcase and pulled out Matthew Coppice’s envelope. ‘What’s this, then? What is it? You want to know what it is? I’ll tell you. It’s everything. All I’ve got on Moggerhanger is in here, documentary evidence that’s going to shake the criminal world to its foundations.’
‘Don’t be so bleddy daft.’ He thought his Nottingham accent would make me back down. My beloved, fatal, powerful packet of damning evidence against Moggerhanger and all his works flapped in the air only a foot from Bill Straw’s nose. ‘This,’ I shouted, ‘will hang the drug-peddling villain!’
His bottle-blue eyes, like a pair of kid’s marbles about to hit each other in the game of the century, couldn’t believe their luck — I realise now. He snatched the envelope. ‘What do you want that for?’ — and threw it into the sea.
Maria vomited again and again, but Bill was too busy to console her. My gorge solidified. I was safe from seasickness, though not, for a while, safe from doing the bastard in.
‘Your envelope may look like a lifeboat.’ He held me from jumping after it. ‘But it’s too small, Michael. It’ll sink without trace, and so would you. I like you too much to let you kill yourself in such a cause. An old Sherwood Forester doesn’t let that happen to a mate. And I like myself too much to let you kill me. So stop it. We didn’t come all this way for it to end like that. There are better things in life than death, as your good father once said to me. It’s no use struggling. I know what you want better than you do yourself, at the moment, and I’m only doing it knowing you would do it for me in similar circumstances. Life’s all we’ve got, Michael, and it behoves us to keep it. God wouldn’t like it to be otherwise. And when a Sherwood Forester brings God into the issue you know he’s serious. He’s on the firing step. So keep still, will you? We’re both on the firing step. Stop struggling and spluttering, because you’re not going over the top. I’m not going to let you. The only way you’ll get over that rail is if you take me with you, and you may be strong but you’re not strong enough for that. I’m staying where I am, and so are you. Those bits of paper aren’t worth it. The only way to dispose of Moggerhanger is to kill him, but don’t try that either, because you’ll get killed first. And if you’re not, you’ll be killed afterwards. You can’t fight him and Lanthorn as well, and the whole of the British nation, because Moggerhanger is so powerful that he’s one of them, and if they insist on clutching him to their bosoms that’s their affair, because believe me they clutch worse things to their bosoms than Moggerhanger, and for you to kill yourself to get rid of him, and to do them in the eye as well, which is what it would mean, is just not worth you losing your life. Nor is it worth me losing mine, which is what would happen if you lost yours. Moggerhanger is as rotten as the whole country, Michael. They’re one and the same thing, and for you to think you can do anything about it not only astounds me but saddens me. Let them rot, because though the country deserves a better fate — and I love England just as much as you do, if not more — you’re not the one to cure it. It’ll have to do without you. One person can’t alter the course of history without the whole country being on his side, and if the whole country is on his side anyone can alter the course of history. I suppose Blaskin said that as well. Or I don’t know what I’m saying. You’re upsetting me, I’ll tell you that. I’ll go out of my mind if you don’t stop struggling. Look on the bright side. The three of us can take a holiday in Holland on my money, or part of it anyway, and drive down the Rhine to Switzerland in your jalopy. Then we’ll come back to Blighty and go to Upper Mayhem, where Maria will have her baby.’
‘You fucking won’t,’ I said.
‘Oh, don’t get like that. Let’s go inside to that cosy bar, and you can buy me another drink. We’ll take Maria with us. She’ll be lighter going down than she was coming up, and that’s a fact, won’t you, my lovely little duck?’
I hated his guts, but no more intensely than I hated my own. I knew what he had talked about with Moggerhanger, and why Moggerhanger had let him and Maria go. I knew indeed that he had been working for Moggerhanger all along, that the despicable bastard was nothing less than his recruiting sergeant who from the beginning was set on to get me for a few hard jobs, and to keep an eye on me while I was doing them. Even Eric Alport being on the train when I came into London at Bill’s summons had been no accident.