Twice Shy

'Gun?' Gilbert said sharply. 'Gun?'

'His pistol.'

'Angelo-' There was no mistaking the anger in the father's voice. 'I've forbidden you – forbidden you, do you hear, to carry that gun. I sent you to ask for those tapes. To ask. To buy.'

'Threats are cheaper,' Angelo said. 'And I'm not a child. The days when I took your orders are over.'

They faced each other in unleashed antagonism.

'That pistol is for protection,' Gilbert said intensely. 'And it is mine. You are not to threaten people with it. You are not to take it out of this house. You still depend on me for a living, and while you work for me and live in this house you'll do what I say. You'll leave that gun strictly alone.'

God in Heaven, I thought: he doesn't know about Chris Norwood.

'You taught me to shoot,' Angelo said defiantly.

'But as a sport,' Gilbert said, and didn't understand that sport for his son was a living target.

I interrupted the filial battle and said to Gilbert, 'You've got the tapes. Will you pay Mrs O'Rorke?'

'Don't be bloody stupid,' Angelo said.

I ignored him. To his father I said, 'You were generous before. Be generous now.'

I didn't expect him to be. I wanted only to distract him, to keep his mind on something trivial, not to let him think.

'Don't listen to him,' Angelo said. 'He's only a mug.'

Gilbert's face mirrored his son's words. He looked me up and down with the same inner conviction of superiority, the belief that everyone was a mug except himself.

If Gilbert felt like that, I thought, it was easy to see why Angelo did. Parental example. I would often at school know the father by the behaviour of the son.

I shrugged. I looked defeated. I let them get on with their ill-will. I wanted above all to get out of that house before they started putting bits of knowledge together and came up with a picture of me as a real towering threat to Angelo's liberty. I didn't know if Gilbert would stop his son- or could stop him- if Angelo wanted me dead: and there was a lot of leafy Welwyn Garden City lying quietly in the back garden.

'Mrs O'Rorke's expecting me,' I said, 'to know how I got on.'

'Tell her nothing doing,' Angelo said.

Gilbert nodded.

I edged past Angelo to the door, looking suitably meek under his scathing sneer.

'Well,' I said weakly, 'I'll be going.'

I walked jerkily through the hall, past the attendant golf clubs and out of the open front door, taking with me a last view of Gilbert locking psychological horns with the menace that would one day overthrow him.

I was sweating. I wiped the palms of my hands on my trousers, fumbled open the car door, put a faintly trembling hand on the ignition key and started the engine.

If they hadn't been so busy fighting each other…

As I turned out of the drive into the cul-de-sac itself I had a glimpse of the two of them coming out onto the step to stare after me, and my mouth was uncomfortably dry until I was sure Angelo hadn't leapt into his car to give chase

I had never felt my heart flutter that way before. I had never, I supposed, felt real fear. I couldn't get it to subside. I felt shaky, restless, short of breath, slightly sick.

Reaction, no doubt.

CHAPTER 8

Somewhere between Welwyn and Twickenham, I pulled into a parking space to work out where to go.

I could go home, collect my guns, and drive to Bisley. I looked down at my hands. On present form, I'd miss the target by a yard. No point in wasting money on the ammunition.

It should take a fair while for the Gilberts to discover that they had 'Starstrike' instead of racing programs, but not as long as that to work out that while I had the original tapes, they had no exclusive control of Liam's system. I needed somewhere they wouldn't find me when they came looking. Pity, I thought, that Sarah and I had so few friends.

I walked across the road to a public telephone box and telephoned to William's farm.

'Well, of course, Jonathan,' Mrs Porter said. 'Of course, I'd have you. But William's gone. He got fed up with no horses to ride here and he packed up and went off to Lambourn this morning. He'd a friend there, he said, and he's going straight back to school from there tomorrow evening.'

'Was he all right?'

'So much energy!' she said. 'But he won't eat a thing. Says he wants to keep his weight down, to be a jockey.'

I sighed. 'Thanks anyway.'

'It's a pleasure to have him,' she said. 'He makes me laugh.'

I rang off and counted the small stack of coins I had left, and public-spiritedly spent them on the Newmarket police.

'Chief Superintendent Irestone isn't here, sir,' they said. 'Do you want to leave a message?'

I hesitated, but in the end all I said was, 'Tell him Jonathan Derry called. I have a name for him. I'll get in touch with him later.'

'Very good, sir.'

I got back into the car, consulted a slip of paper in my wallet and drove to Northolt to visit Ted Pitts, knowing that quite likely he wouldn't be pleased to see me. When I had finally tracked down the school secretary, he had parted with the requested information reluctantly, saying that the masters' addresses were sacrosanct to save them from over-zealous parents. Ted Pitts, he said, had particularly made him promise not to divulge.

'But I'm not a parent.'

'Well, no.'

I'd had to persuade, but I got it. And one could see, I thought, why Ted wanted to guard his privacy, because where he lived, I found, was in a mobile home on a caravan site. Neat enough, but not calculated to impress some of the social-climbers in the P.T. A.

Ted's wife, who opened the door to my knock, looked surprised but not unwelcoming. She was as earnest as Ted, small, bright-eyed, an occasional visitor to school football matches, where Ted tore up and down the pitches refereeing. I sought for a name and thought 'Jane', but wasn't sure. I smiled hopefully instead.

'How's Ted?' I said.

'Much better. His voice is coming back.' She opened the door wider. 'He'd like to see you, I'm sure, so do come in.' She gestured to the inside of the caravan, where I couldn't yet see, and said – 'It's a bit of a mess. We didn't expect visitors.'

'If you'd rather I didn't-'

'No. Ted will want you.'

I stepped up into the van and saw what she meant. In every direction spread an untidy jumble of books and newspapers and clothes and toys, all the normal clutter of a large family but condensed into a very small space.

Ted was in the minuscule sitting-room with his three little girls, sitting on a sofa and watching while they played on the floor. When he saw me he jumped to his feet in astonishment and opened his mouth, but all that came out was a squeaky croak.

'Don't talk,' I said. 'I just came to see how you are.' Any thoughts I had about cadging a bed from him had vanished. It seemed silly, indeed, to mention it.

'I'm better.' The words were recognisable, but half a whisper, and he gestured for me to sit down. His wife offered coffee and I accepted. The children squabbled and he kicked them gently with his toe.

'Jane will take them out soon,' he said huskily.

'I'm being a nuisance.'

He shook his head vigorously. 'Glad you came.' He pointed to a ledge running high along one wall and said, 'I bought your new tapes. They're up there, with your cassettes, out of reach. The children climb so. Haven't done the copying yet, though. Sorry.' He rubbed his throat as if massage would help, and made a face of frustration.

'Don't talk,' I said again, and passed on William's information about form books. He seemed pleased enough but also subdued, as if the knowledge no longer interested.

Jane returned with one mug of coffee and offered sugar. I shook my head and took a sip of the liquid which looked dark brown but tasted weak.