I was pulled up like a rag doll, sat on the bench and given a cigarette. ‘Why did you make things so difficult? Why didn’t you say so?’
The inspector shouted to the bloke inside. ‘How many?’
‘Four, sir.’
‘There should be five.’
The copper came out with the five boxes on his arm. ‘It was too dark to count.’
‘I’ll deal with you later.’
The other went in, to fetch a biscuit for the dog. ‘Got any water for our Dismal?’
I pointed to the stream.
‘Don’t be so sarky.’
My blood was racing with speculation. Would I get sent down for twenty years? Or forty? Next time, I’ll do a murder and only get five. I wouldn’t take the blame for Moggerhanger over this job, even if he had me cut to ribbons in jail. I was ready to cry at the balls-up that had been made, and wondered how it was possible that the coppers had got to know I was down here with such a cargo. I could hardly credit the fact that the Blemishes had been the most sophisticated kind of narks. Yet it was hard to disbelieve anything in this life. Before the arrival of the canoeists I could have assumed that the packages contained nothing but Epsom Salts or sachets of aspirins, as advertised on television, and that I was a decoy, but they couldn’t have set up such an original and elaborate transport plan only for that.
‘I don’t know what you’re after.’ I stroked the dog, which seemed amiable after its biscuit and water. ‘There’s nothing illegal in those packets. In any case, I didn’t see a search warrant, if you don’t mind me saying so.’
I dodged a backhander, but it wasn’t seriously meant, otherwise it would have got me. ‘We don’t need ’em these days,’ the biggest bastard said. ‘Don’t you watch telly?’
‘Do you mind if I go in for a biscuit?’ I asked. ‘I’m famished.’ The inspector nodded. I came out with the packet, and Dismal pulled the first one from my hand. After a kick from the inspector it disentangled itself and went off for a piss.
In such circumstances my powers of observation go to pieces, but I saw that the inspector was, if nothing else, well built. He took his cap off to talk, and to scratch his bald head. I wouldn’t have described him as white, but as pink — and I hope I don’t go against the Race Relations Act in doing so. He had thickish lips, prominent blue eyes and a nose that seemed to have been broken more than once. He looked halfway civilised with his cap off, but the tone of voice was so reasonable it would have made anyone quail, except me. ‘Listen, we’re taking the stuff to our laboratories. It’s not for you, or me, or my officers here to say what these packages contain until they have been properly examined by competent authorities. So shut your fucking mouth. I strongly advise you to stay at your present domicile — meaning here — until such time as you hear from us. There may be further questions, following which, charges may well be brought. Is that clearly understood — sir?’
‘All right,’ I said.
He put his hat on. ‘Back in the car, lads!’
I waved them off with a smile, to show that I didn’t believe I had anything to fear, or like a guilty man who thinks it’s the best way to act innocent, but knowing that it’s the surest way to be taken as guilty. But when the car was out of hearing I only hoped that an escarpment had formed at the top of the lane in the last half hour so that they would drop five hundred feet and never come back.
No such luck. It was the end. Half of Moggerhanger’s precious loot was on its way to the cop shop, while I was condemned to stay in a rat infested hovel till such time, maybe two or three days, as they would come and take me away. I didn’t even have the heart to go inside and make another cup of tea. My morale had gone, and that was a fact. I couldn’t think for the noise of water from one direction, the triumphant scratching of rats in the other, and the rushing of wind through branches overhead.
But the one thing about your morale having gone bang is that you no longer need fear it will go. It’s gone, and good riddance, and under the circumstances it had had fair reason to evaporate. Reflecting further, once your morale has well and truly gone, it can only come back. Nothing stays the same. That’s the joy and excitement of life. I was more philosophical than in my early twenties.
The first indication of returning sanity was when Dismal the tracker dog came out of the bushes and licked my hand. It wanted another biscuit, and though my supplies were limited, I gave it one. The large brown head lay on my knees in gratitude. It was a big dog. If it stood on hind legs it would reach to the top button of my waistcoat, meaning that since he had become my guest we had exactly three hours supply of food left. How could those callous bastards, have forgotten such an amiable animal? By cheering me up it seemed anything but dismal.
The horrible truth came to me that they had left it behind to stop me getting away. What malicious ingenuity! I couldn’t believe it. But what else could I believe? In my rage I kicked the brute. It made no difference. The bloody hound came back and lay at my feet. I gave it a slice of smoked bacon. By the time they returned the dog would be whimpering by my skeleton. Such a scene indeed was dismal. My sense of humour was coming back.
I smoked another cigarette. I was too depressed to puff a cigar. The dog tried to pull it from me before I could light up, but desisted on being threatened by the flaming match. I walked to the edge of the stream. It was too wide to leap across. The dog pleaded for me not to drown myself. It had very expressive eyes for a police dog.
I went into the house, packed my things, including the remains of the food, and loaded them into the car. Then I locked the door, and settled myself in the driver’s seat. Because I acted like an automaton I knew that what I was doing was right. Whether it was sensible, I wouldn’t know for some time, but sense did not seem to offer much help in my predicament. It had always been my gut-feeling — and I can remember my Cullen grandfather saying so — that you never go to the cop shop on your own two feet. They have to drag you there kicking and screaming — after they find you.
It would not be tactically sound to depart from the place in daylight. I would pander to sense to that extent. I came in darkness, and I would go in darkness, like the thief in the night I was being made to feel. I would stay in the car and give Dismal more time to get used to me.
It rained, and he looked forlornly in. When he could no longer stand being wet he sheltered as much of his body as possible under the rotting porch by the door. Whenever I went into the house to make tea I was always careful to give him a dish, which he lapped dry. I spread the blankets in the back of the car, but would not let him get in till the time came. I was so bored waiting that I read halfway through the Good Food and Hotel Guide, trying to find out which establishment accepted overnight guests with dogs. There was a place called The Golden Fleece in an old fortress-and-market-town which had only survived from the Middle Ages because the Germans hadn’t bombed it flat. It had plastic coffin baths in the bathrooms and four-poster plastic beds with flock mattresses that you disappeared into, which gave proof of its antiquity. There was, I felt sure, a King Arthur Bar and a Friar Tuck Dining Room, where a thug in Lincoln green stood by with a bow and arrow to pin you to the wall if they found out that your stolen credit card was counterfeit. The waitresses were called wenches and they all but served their own beautiful dumplings as they slopped frozen this and microwaved that onto your vast oval wooden platter, a look of horror on their faces at the fact that you actually wanted to eat it. The manager acted the grand swell and called you ‘Squire’ because he was charging forty pounds a night and getting away with it.