“Oh, I won’t,” he grinned. “I only want to meet him and shake his hand. But I’d better let Lord Moggerhanger know you’ve come.”
He passed me on to Toffee Bottle, who led me through the kitchen and along the corridor. Moggerhanger stood up from a writing desk covered in papers, looking healthier than when I’d last seen him, tall, well built, eyes hard to meet — though I did — a meaty hand extended, my pressure not quite as firm as his.
He wore a suit, white shirt with heavy gold cufflinks, a waistcoat with watch chain and Masonic trinkets dangling. His tie of black and red stripes could have been from an old school, though as far as I knew he’d never been to any, or only for long enough to get reading and writing into his big head of thinning hair. His nose looked as if it had been knocked about in boxing. “Michael, I’m glad to see you. Three years, isn’t it? I’ve often wondered when we were going to meet again.”
“I sometimes thought of coming to see you for a friendly chat,” I said, “but I didn’t know whether you hadn’t changed your address.”
“Not me. It’s a life sentence, having this place. In any case my address is my name. And I’m in the book. Those whom the gods wish to drive mad they first make ex-directory.”
“I hoped you were well, and thriving.”
“I’m glad you did. And I am as well. As long as your shit mill’s in order, that’s all that matters. But sit down, then we can talk at our ease.” He passed a box of the best. “Have a cigar.”
I didn’t like the way things were going. He was far too affable. But I took the smoke, and sat. A forty-litre bottle of whisky with a spigot near the bottom rested on its trolley behind me. It was a magnificent monument of prime booze glistening in the light, a symbol of Moggerhanger’s status as the richest and most powerful racketeer in London. I had always thought that his grip on the world wouldn’t be broken till such a fancy container was smashed and the last trickle drained. I didn’t suppose I would ever live to see it but, if I did, it would be the day of my life.
I hoped he’d offer me a swig, and if not prayed that one of the wheels would get a puncture. I had no idea what he wanted to see me for, already realising it would take him a long time to make his meaning clear. He was the trickiest person I knew, and I had been acquainted with more than a few in my time. I took out Clegg’s watch, for a wind up it didn’t need.
“Be careful,” he said, “or you’ll break the mainspring. They’re not easy to get mended these days. All the old trades are fading away. People buy a watch for a fiver that loses a second in a hundred years, and when they go wrong they throw them away and buy another. I must say, though, you’re looking smart, but then, you always did. You know I set great store by a man’s turnout.”
He was big headed enough to think I’d togged up specially for him. I put the watch back, and puffed on the cigar, which I suppose he thought completed my appearance of confidence and prosperity.
“The thing is,” he went on, “I know you to be a very good driver. Oh yes, there are plenty of them, to hear them talk, but you’re different. You’re intelligent, resourceful, persistent and quick thinking.”
He could say what he liked, but I wasn’t a young fool anymore. No more purblind zig-zagging into criminality for his benefit. I’d done a few jobs for him once upon a time, but never again. I knew better than to heed his flattery and blandishments.
“Another thing is,” he said, “that when you’re behind a wheel you have a map in your head, while the rest of them don’t know what a map means. You’re useful to me for that reason, because whenever I need to get out of London in a hurry a petrol bowser has overturned and exploded at Henleys Corner, a water main’s burst in Croydon, a Second World War bomb has been found in the East End, there’s a multiple pile-up on the road to London Airport, and a line of roadworks at Kew with a tailback to Hammersmith Roundabout. Throw in a women’s sitdown to save a hospital or get a Belisha beacon set up somewhere, and I’ve no hope of getting away by any road. Even if I want to leave by chopper the Battersea Pad is buried in fog or snow. But I know I can rely on you to read a map and find parallel routes. It gets so bad I sometimes feel I’m under siege in London. I like to think there’s always a possibility of getting into the countryside or down to Dover when the need arises. It’s not the same as when I was a lad, when there was only one rule of the road for me.”
“What was that, Lord Moggerhanger?”
He gave his usual graveyard laugh. “No car in front, and no car behind! Now there’s so much riff-raff pottering around in their little tin motors that all one’s mottoes go for nothing. Age does terrible things to you. But I’m sure you’re still a good wheelworker, Michael.”
If he’d meant a potter’s wheel I’d have made more money than working for him. I couldn’t but wonder what he was getting at, something never easy to divine. There was a motive for every word he spoke, never the man to throw talk away. My opinion of him was too simple, and his words were sometimes so devious that if I didn’t regard them as simple I’d have no chance of getting close to what lay behind. All I could do was nod, and listen, and enjoy the cigar, and mull on the fact that with Moggerhanger my suspicions were always nine-tenths of certainty. He had a job for me, and a very dodgy one it would be.
“Do you remember Chief Inspector Lanthorn?”
I scented mischief, because how could I forget that six-foot blunt instrument who got me sent to jail, the biggest bastard of a bent copper in the business? “I certainly do.”
He put on a sinister chuckle, and knew it. “It was such a pity he had that massive heart attack crossing Horse Guards Parade a few years ago.”
“It made my day. I was happy for a whole year.”
“Not mine it didn’t, though every cloud has a silver lining, even a gold one at times, because like father like son, his eldest lad is now working for the customs at one of our seaports.”
Ash fell from my cigar. “I hope he’s doing well.”
“Let’s put it this way: it’s very convenient, and he’s loyal to me now and again. And don’t get that tone in your voice. We all have to make a living, you as much as anybody, otherwise why are you here? Am I right?”
I lost patience, but only enough to shift my feet. “I’m afraid you are.”
“So let’s get down to business.” He leaned towards me, cufflinks clinking on picking up his glass to take a swig. “Do you have an up-to-date passport?”
“I did some motoring with my wife in France and Spain last year. I don’t even go to the bog unless it’s in my back pocket.”
“Better and better. Would you like to travel a little further afield?”
Would I? He’d been looking at a photograph of me before my arrival, so knew the best way to tempt me. “Depends where.”
“Michael, there are times when I don’t think I can trust you, but at least I know how far I can trust you, and that’s worth a lot in my business. So don’t be evasive. All I want to know is, are you with me, or aren’t you?”
“I’m with you.” Apart from being in no position to argue, a bit of continental motoring was right up my street.
“The first mark of intelligence,” he said, “is curiosity. The second is a sense of humour and, as you know, there’s nothing I like more than a good laugh. It’s the men who can only smile I can’t stand. I want you to drive to Greece in the Rolls Royce. My wife loves Greek food, and she’s got a shopping list as long as Kenny Dukes’ left arm.”
He laughed, at my simulated look of relief. “That’s all right then,” I said. “But only as far as Greece?”