“If we survive this,” the tallest sergeant said, “we can look forward to a bit of counselling — I haven’t had any for a while. I hope they send me a nice young girl again.”
“It’s nothing to what he’ll need if he don’t drop that shooter and say he’s sorry the idea of killing us ever entered his Jack Lantern,” another sergeant said who, I now noticed, had a scar down his left cheek. “Come on, lad, be sensible.”
Though Kenny was right off his loaf I had to admire him. We had underrated how perilous circumstances could jerk him into his London gangster self, though if Moggerhanger ever got to know he wouldn’t thank him for it. Maybe he was still deranged by the hangover, and didn’t yet realise he was offering his life for the sake of his employer’s washing powders. I considered nodding Dismal onto him, but why should a poor dog die in such a cause?
“Go on, close the boot, so that we can get going,” Kenny shouted, his voice steadier now, “or I’ll let you have it. I fucking well mean it.”
A smile wiggled across the inspector’s thin lips. “Do as he says, lads. You can’t negotiate with someone like that.” One of the sergeants must have been away in the bushes for a piss, or somewhere to admire the wet and deadly landscape that went for scenery, or even to snaffle some of the whisky that had sent Kenny bonkers, Moggerhanger never supplying his horsebox with less than half a dozen bottles. He crept around the corner with truncheon raised, and sent down a swipe on Kenny’s skull that proved him not to be indestructible after all, in spite of his South London upbringing, though he didn’t let go of the gun as he crashed to the mud.
After the policemen had taken a turn giving his senseless body a few spiteful kicks they made a human chain between the boot of the Roller and one of the Range Rovers, which made me feel stupid and helpless to watch, knowing that our effort of the day had been for nothing. They’ll let us drive in our own car to the copshop now, I thought, blue lights flashing and all sirens threatening before and behind, so that we wouldn’t be able to escape.
Bill went to the inspector, who was about to get in the front car. “May I know what we’re going to be charged with, sir? All those packets are filled with toys for our children.”
The inspector pushed him in the chest. “Fuck off, Straw. We know you. Wakefield jail, wasn’t it? They’re our toys now. If we see either of you two or that fucking dog again in these parts we’ll chop you all up and make a stew to feed the local down and outs in Tadcaster. Won’t we, lads?”
With energy and much laughter they pulled the blue lights off their cars, peeled back the police labels, painted graffiti along the jam-sandwich lines, and shot off at a speed that real policemen wouldn’t emulate for fear of injuring innocent bystanders or crawling motorists around the next bend.
“That’s that, then,” I said. “We’ll get poor Kenny back into the horsebox. Coppers my arse, though. The thieving bastards didn’t even take his gun.”
We made Kenny comfortable, as they say in hospital, where he should have been, though he was twitching a footpath out of his stupor, his head somewhat more bloody than before. Bill sulked at the wheel, Dismal reoccupied the back seat, and I opened the flask and food packages. “We might as well fortify ourselves, before deciding what to do.”
“Oh Michael,” Bill wailed, “why didn’t you agree to my scheme? If we’d turned right at the paved road instead of left we’d have been clear away by now. We could have gone in ever diminishing circles to Dover and crossed the Moat to the mainland with no trouble. As it is, we’re done for. Even if we sell the horsebox it won’t get us anywhere near Runna-Runna. And how can we turn up in Ealing with an empty car? Moggerhanger will do you in.”
I ignored the implication of that, and passed Dismal another sandwich, who ate quicker than us. “No he won’t. Those jailbirds were cops in disguise, ordered up here to take the stuff away as soon as we had moved it out of Delphick’s. Moggerhanger couldn’t take the chance of someone as crooked as you and me embarking on a hairbrained stunt to Runna-Runna with the loot. Don’t you see? He’s more cunning than we could ever be. That’s how he got to where he is. He sat in his office, had a good giggle, and worked it all out. He’ll expect us to go back in fear of our lives — and emoluments — and have a long belly laugh saying what he’d done, and gloating over his trick. I might be dim, but I know him like the back of his hand. If I’d put my thinking cap on earlier we could have shot across the moors into Lancashire and gone back to him in triumph, to his unexpected surprise if not discomfiture.”
Bill began to eat. “We lost the chance of a lifetime, and I’ll regret it to my dying day. It would have been so easy.”
I poured the sweet coffee. “We’d never have got to enjoy it.”
“Let’s sell the Roller. It’s in good nick. And it’s only had one owner.”
“As far as we know. You never can tell, with Moggerhanger. But listen,” I said, “even if we sold the spare tyre, to pay our way to Zeebrugge he wouldn’t rest till he’d had our guts for garters.”
“I’d have his first. I wouldn’t mind swinging for him. He shouldn’t treat us as playthings. Imagine him not trusting us. That hurts.”
“It wouldn’t be any use killing him. And people don’t get strung up anymore. They get out in ten years, no matter how many people they’ve killed. You might not get that much if you plead self-defence, but even if you only got six months some of Moggerhanger’s lads inside would take the hint and top you. So don’t think about it. There’s no point. We’ll have a slow ride down to London, and hope those fake cops get the drugs there before us. Let Moggerhanger have his laugh. We’ll get paid all the same.”
“I say, though,” he laughed, “wouldn’t it be just the ticket if those blokes took off to Runna-Runna instead of us? They must be thinking about it, the same as we did.”
“It wouldn’t be good at all, because in that case Moggerhanger would have a reason for being extremely cross at us for having let it go.” I closed the window against the rain. “We must go back and face the music. There’s no other way, is how I see it.”
“It doesn’t sound good to me,” he said. “Moggerhanger can be very vicious when he thinks he’s got the upper hand. Perhaps it would be better if we drove the car to the Forest of Bowland, abandoned it, and took off overland. Dismal will come, to catch rabbits and pheasants for us, but we’d leave Kenny to his first experience of Outward Bound survival. It’ll be invigorating for us to do a bit of yomping, say twenty miles a day to start with.”
“What do you mean? Training for when you break out of Dartmoor? Forget it. Turn the ignition back on, and let’s get going.”
“Do you know, Michael, you’re no fun. I always used to think you were, but you’re not. You aren’t getting old, are you? It don’t look like it. Think of the lads in the Falklands, sixty miles from the enemy, not even a footpath, and suddenly they’re on the Argies who’d never expected them. The whole battalion went sixty miles across a swamp. The indirect approach again. That’s the British Army for you.”
“Pity you didn’t go with them.”
“Do you think I didn’t try? I almost ran to enlist, but they said I was too old. Too old! Me! I cried all the way to the pub. I couldn’t think what the world was coming to, turning down a born soldier. You should have seen me as a young lad of eighteen, though, when speed was of the essence. I was over the assault course before the others had even got started.”
Arguing had always exhausted me sooner than action. “If I hear anymore about your military prowess I get out of the car, find a nice bushy tree, and hang myself.”