“Thanks, partner.”
Moxon knew more than enough about me to do it, too. I wondered whether to walk out into the open and let the bloke at the window kill me there and then. In view of what happened later, I might as well have.
Probably Cavendish, too, could have finished me off as I lay in the cab of the JCB. But he must have seen the police appearing over the slope, because when I dared to look over the dashboard he’d turned his attention away from me and was pointing his gun at something off to the left. It looked remarkably like the gun I’d left in the drawer in the house at West Laneton. It was fully loaded, too, unless he’d used it since then. I’d checked it myself.
Through a crack in the side window I could see the cops had stopped where they were and got busy looking for cover. I knew exactly what would happen now. They’d be straight on the radio shouting for armed support, and they’d be holding off until the lads in the fancy body armour arrived — which might not be for the next half hour.
Meanwhile, there was just me out here, with no standard operational procedures and no Police Manual regulations to hold me back. It looked as though it was up to me again, and there would only be Stones McClure to blame when it all went wrong. Story of my life.
I dropped out of the driver’s door of the cab and nearly made it round the back of the abandoned boiler before Cavendish noticed me and decided to come after me. Suddenly I was the hunted instead of the hunter, and it didn’t feel too comfortable.
I pushed the debris aside and shinned up onto a skip full of rubbish. From there I reached for one of the open arches into the engine house. I could hear Cavendish coming after me, but he was being cautious. Maybe he thought I was armed too, in some way. If so, he’d badly overestimated my resourcefulness. I didn’t even have a spare sock to throw at him. Maybe I could frighten him to death by pulling faces, but my gut feeling told me I was at a slight disadvantage, like a ladybird on a stalk of grass that’s about to be eaten by a cow.
I jumped down from the arch onto the floor of the building and made for the wooden stairs to the top floor. I wasn’t halfway there when I heard Cavendish walk through the door. I hadn’t even bothered to check whether it was unlocked. People are so lax with their security.
“Just stop there, McClure.”
Even without looking round, I could feel the gun pointing at me. I stopped at the bottom of the stairs and turned. Cavendish looked nervous. His coat was covered in coal dust and his brogues were unrecognisable. He was breathing hard, and his eyes flickered round the building as if he expected company at any moment. With a bit of luck, we might get it too. But would they be too late?
“The police are outside,” I pointed out. “You haven’t a hope.”
“Yes, I have,” he said. “I’ve got you.”
“Well, I’m delighted to bring hope into someone’s life. What exactly did you have in mind?”
“You’re going to be my hostage.”
“Wow. My dream. Do we get the TV cameras and all that? Global coverage by CNN, and the SAS coming in with smoke grenades? This could be my moment of fame.”
“Damn well shut up, McClure.”
“By the way, is your name really Cavendish? Or is it Perella? I need to know for the interviews afterwards. I don’t want to get my facts wrong.”
“It doesn’t matter to you.”
“Oh, yes it does. I like to know who’s been trying to wreck my business, and why.”
The hand holding the gun was shaking, and it wasn’t just from the exertion. Cavendish was scared stiff. That was risky — he might be trigger happy in an agitated state. But it also gave me my best chance. I didn’t want to be still standing there when the cops came clumping up and made him even more nervous. There wasn’t much near me that I could use as a weapon. The interior of the engine house was practically bare — just a bit of rubbish lying about on the floor, and a few lumps of coal. Above me, pigeons were shuffling on the ledges of the windows, dropping their sarcastic comments down the wall and wishing we’d all go away.
“You were just incidental, McClure. I wouldn’t have bothered with the likes of you, but you went out of your way to annoy me. I don’t forget things like that.”
“Oh, I can be such an embarrassment, can’t I? ’Course, I haven’t had your upbringing. No couth, that’s me.”
“Was it you that broke into my house?”
“Of course. Shame about the dovecote.”
“The jewellery was in there. I lost the lot.”
“Not all of it. Some of it is in your car, under the seat. No doubt the police have found it by now. It came from the job you did on the Jewellery Box in Medensworth.”
“I thought so. I knew you’d set me up. You’ve been a big nuisance to me, McClure.”
“That’s what everybody says.”
“First you started muscling in on my territory.”
“Your territory? I was here first, mate.”
“You’re just a council estate yob. My ancestors owned this area.”
“Oh, still on that line? I bet your most famous ancestor was just some younger son’s bastard by a servant girl, if the truth were known.”
His face went red and the tendons stood out on his neck as he snarled at me. Damn, I seemed to have hit a nerve there.
“You’re going to pay for that, McClure.”
“No!”
I shouted the word as loud as I could, kicking up a great echo against the high walls of the engine house. Above us, the flock of pigeons took off, startled. The immense clattering of wings was like a thunderflash going off. Cavendish reacted instantly, whipping round and firing up towards the unexpected noise. I bent and hefted a lump of rusty metal from the floor and heaved it towards him. It caught his arm and sent the gun spinning across the floor. He was too surprised to move, and I got to the gun first to kick away into the far corner.
Cavendish read my intention. Since I was between him and the door, he had only one place to go. He ran up the stairs, with me at his heels, and leaped for the arched entrance on the first floor of the building. He’d gone several steps out into the open air before he realised he was running up the metal walkway towards the winding gear headstocks. He looked down at the ground and began to wobble. I stood in the opening and smiled at him.
“That’s what I like to see. Somebody going out on a limb. Like to feel you’re up there above the rest of us, do you, Cavendish? Well, tough, because I’m coming after you.”
“Stay away, McClure.”
“No chance.”
Cavendish backed further up the walkway, slipping and stumbling until he reached the maintenance platform running round the twin wheels of the headgear. Somehow the sight of him up there in his Hugo Boss suit made me grit me teeth with anger. At that moment I probably hated him more than ever. What right had he even to go near the last reminder of the pit where my dad and all those thousands of other men had worked and sweated and died?
At last the police were coming, cars and an armoured van throwing up the dust as they raced towards the engine house. Cavendish saw them coming too. But he must also have recognised the look in my eye as I began to move up the walkway towards him. In a panic, he turned to go round the platform. His muddy brogues slipped and he toppled forward, grabbing at the nearest spoke of a wheel for support.
But the wheel wasn’t as rusted up as it looked. As Cavendish hit it with all his weight, it began to move, throwing him off balance and carrying him over the edge of the platform. He screamed as he bounced off the blue spokes and cartwheeled in the air. Then he hit the ground below with a horrible, meaty thud.
A moment of silence. I hung on tightly to the rail as I looked down at the spreadeagled body. I’d never seen anyone look quite so dead. His shape was imprinted deep into the coal dust, which hung around him like a fog until it began to settle again, slowly covering his face. I tried to summon a respectful thought into my head, but couldn’t manage it.