‘It’s been very interesting talking to you.’ He held out his carefully manicured hand as the train drew into Liverpool Street. I noticed a wad of yellow cotton wool in his left ear. ‘I find it pleasant travelling by train these days. Can’t think where that ticket collector’s got to with your change, though.’
His hand felt like five baby cobras nestling in my palm, so I shook it free and jumped out of the carriage, zigzagging through the crowd before he could catch me up to ask the loan of ten quid for a cup of tea. I won’t see that lying swine again, I thought. How wrong I was.
Two
Making my way into the underground with a 10p ticket for a 40p journey I passed a gaudy and shocking poster of four hefty policemen using their truncheons on a man against a wall, with the caption underneath saying: ‘Is it worth it for cheating on your fare?’
While waiting on the platform I noticed in the personal column of The Times a cryptic message meant only for me. ‘You can’t make hay out of straw when the cat is out. Bill.’ This indicated that I had been tracked by persons known or unknown since leaving home that morning, and that the first to put tabs on me was that so-called Queen’s Messenger. If Bill had got himself in trouble with Moggerhanger, or Lord Moggerhanger since the New Year’s Honours List, then I would soon be in the shit as well. Tangle with Claud Moggerhanger, and the razors came out, and when they came out they went in — into your flesh. Or you landed in the nick on some framed-up charge, after buying a second-hand car from one of Moggerhanger’s innumerable outlets, and driving off with a different number plate back and front so that the cyclops picked you up three corners away and had the laugh of their lives.
At Leicester Square I threw my ticket at the collector at the top of the crowded escalator and was through the barrier before he could pick it up. A fattish man in a shabby suit with wide trousers and a nicky hat rested his umbrella while browsing at a girlie-mag bookstall, and in passing I took the brolly and walked out into the open air, suitably equipped for my reappearance in the Metropolis. The London brolly was the equivalent of the Amsterdam bike, to be picked up without the stigma of stealing and dropped later on so that someone else could use it.
Rain splashed on dead beatniks, snow eaters and pavement artists. I felt sorry for a raving looney who stood by stills of big tits and fat arses outside a cinema shouting that they wouldn’t get him, he’d beat them all, because he knew a thing or two, in fact he would get them first, yes he would, because they’d never get him, ha, ha, ha! Japanese holidaymakers took photographs of the AA offices. A split-skirted woman walked up and down with a magnificent Borzoi hound that pulled something unmentionable, even to me, out of a dustbin and walked off with it trailing like a Union Jack. Traffic wardens, in fear of their lives but wearing flak jackets underneath their overcoats, patrolled up and down in twos.
I made my way to The Platinum Hedgehog on Barber Street, and stood in line at the cafeteria. Upstairs was a sitdown restaurant, and downstairs a standup stripclub. Next door was a gambling den, and on the other side was the head office of the Flagellation Book Club in a cupboard, all owned by Moggerhanger, proving (if proof were needed) that buggers can’t be choosers.
The man in front, who was certainly thin enough, took three apple pies, three custards and a cup of tea from the counter. Only Bill Straw could be so sweet-greedy, and I recognised him at once. ‘The pies are full of sugared turnip,’ I said, ‘and the custards are made out of mustard and brothel-come, and as for the tea, piss would be positively safe by comparison.’
He turned. ‘I knew you wouldn’t let me down. But thank God you’re here. Do you know, Michael, you are staring at the most stupid bleeder on God’s earth?’
‘When you sit down you can tell me why.’
He reached back for another custard and then lunged forward for a second cup of tea, so that his tray looked like a model of the centre of Calcutta. I was afraid to be seen with him. The last trouble had started after we had struck up an acquaintance on the Great North Road when Bill, straight out of prison, had begged a lift in my gradually collapsing car.
Instinct told me to put back the cellophane-packed sandwich from my coat pocket and run as far from the place as I could get in what time was left of my life. But I didn’t, due to the sight of Bill’s old-time face, plus a dose of curiosity, and a sense of boredom that hadn’t left since Bridgitte had hopped off to Holland with the kids.
We sat at a table near the door. ‘Just in case,’ he said, looking round every few seconds as if he owned the place and was anxious to see how good or bad trade was.
‘Keep your head still,’ I said, ‘because if anybody comes in looking for you they won’t need an identikit picture to pick you out. They’ll just look for the bottle of machine-oil on the table.’
He smiled like a dead man hoping to come back to life. The only time he was really unconscious was while slopping custard pies into his mouth. It was certainly a come-down for the smart man of the world and gold smuggler I had once known, the man in fact who had trained me at the trade. He was, however, well dressed in a smart suit, good shirt, tie, gold cufflinks and polished shoes, with a fleck of hanky at the top pocket, a briefcase of real leather by his feet, and a Burberry not made in Taiwan over the chair back. Only his manner had momentarily deteriorated. He still had a short back and sides, which was no longer the same with me.
‘Your hair’s a bit long, Michael. Get it cut,’ he said. ‘Doesn’t look good. You’re a middle-aged man now, or bloody close.’
I thanked him for the compliment.
He stared at a young man with hair down to his shoulders, who was demolishing a Sweeny Todd meat pie a few feet away. ‘I can’t stand all these hefty young lads with Veronica Lake hairstyles. They want a sergeant-major to sort ’em out. I sometimes walk behind one and don’t know if it’s a man or a woman. No good for blokes at my age.’
‘If you have short hair these days you’re a suspicious character.’
He didn’t have that total confidence he once had. ‘You think so?’
‘You’d better stick to the business in hand.’
Having finished his breakfast he took out a cigarette case and lit up a fag, blowing smoke rings in the direction of two young women at the next table. ‘They’re lovely, aren’t they? I wouldn’t mind one for supper. Two, in fact. Do you know, Michael, I’m fifty-six, but I still like a feed now and then.’ His lean features, suntanned and clean-shaven, wrinkled into anxiety when he saw my umbrella hooked onto the chair. ‘Where did you get that gamp?’
‘Oh, I just picked it up.’
The sight of it worried him. ‘I don’t like it.’
‘You can lump it, then. It’s mine, and I’m very fond of it. I’ll love it till my dying day. Uncle Randolph used to go to Ascot with it before the War.’
‘Nicked it, eh? Looks fishy to me. Anyway, do you want to hear my story or don’t you? I know you do, and it’s good of you to answer my call so quickly. Michael will always stand by a friend in need, I said. He’s a good six-footer who not only looks after himself in a tight corner, but never lets an old pal down. I didn’t have firmer friends in the Sherwood Foresters. I don’t like the look of that umbrella, though. Where did you get it from?’
I told him.
‘That’s hardly calculated to set my mind at rest. It looks very suspicious.’ He scraped the last stains of custard from all three dishes. ‘Times have changed, Michael. You can’t be too careful these days. Ten years ago things were comparatively civilised. If you strayed from the straight and narrow all you might end up with was a nasty scar on the lee side of your clock, but nowadays you might get chopped into bits and sprinkled over a Thames bridge from a plastic bag. You vanish without trace. The seagulls gulp every morsel. London pigeons are starting to eat flesh. A few months ago I happened to be the unwilling witness of a fight between the Green Toe Gang and Moggerhanger’s Angels, and as a set-to it made the Battle of Bosworth Field look like a pub brawl at the Elephant and Castle. Things have altered, right enough.’