Susie took a step back, trying to hide the glimmer of a smile as Dillon and Steve came down the stairs, done up like dogs' dinners in their brand-new chauffeurs' uniforms, crisp white shirts and black ties, complete with peaked caps.
'You look great…' Susie said, proud and impressed. She waved her hand. 'Hey, kids!'
'Don't…' Dillon's neck was red with embarrassment. He glanced at Steve, and then, finding a weak grin, raised his cap as the boys came charging through. 'How do!'
The telephone rang as Susie opened the front door and ushered the boys outside. She gave Dillon and Steve a big bright smile. 'Good luck! Know what time you'll be home?'
'Hello?' Dillon said into the phone, then covered the mouthpiece. 'We could be late.' Susie winked and shut the door, but opened it almost at once, flagging for Dillon's attention. 'It's Frank speaking, who is this?' Through a blizzard of static he caught the name 'Mary' before his attention was needed elsewhere.
'There's a gang of kids around the car,' Susie alerted him, jabbing her finger beyond the parapet.
Dillon sighed, glanced three ways at once, at Susie, at the phone, at Steve adjusting his cap in the hall mirror. Jesus, if it wasn't one thing it was ten others. 'Go and take a look, Steve… I'll call Jimmy, ask if we can leave it in the garage.' Dillon's lips tightened as Steve dawdled, now putting his tie straight. 'Steve – just go and check the car…'
Steve brushed past and went out banging the door behind him.
Dillon said, 'Hello… hello?' The beeps sounded. Impatiently Dillon checked his watch, waiting for Taffy's missus to feed in more money. Calling from south Wales and she was dropping in ten-pence pieces one at a time. Come on.
'Hello? Mary? Yeah, I'm still here, yeah…' Dillon listened to the distant voice, faint yet obviously distressed. 'Look, love, I don't know what I can suggest. I mean, I'm here, if he wants to call me again -'
beep-beep-beep-beep-beep-beep-beep
'Christ!'
'Frank!' Steve thumping the door with his fist. 'Come on, we'll be late!'
Dillon plonked the receiver into the cradle, set his cap straight, and went out at the trot.
Mary went cautiously up the stairs, the toddler, drowsily sucking her thumb, clasped in her arms. Megan lagged behind, peeping round her mother to the piles of stuff Taffy had placed on the landing. She pointed and whispered, 'See… he's moved everything out!'
Mary looked down at the bundle, Megan's and the toddler's clothing piled on top, the dismantled cot, the blankets and bedding beside it in military order. Handing the child to Megan, she shuffled forward to the door and listened. Not a sound from within, and blessed silence from next door as well, which probably meant they were all watching Noel Edmonds with their tea on their laps, thank God. Mary raised her hand to tap on the door, but didn't.
She called softly, 'Taffy? Do you want something to eat? Taff?'
Frowning and shaking her head, Mary went back down, silently shooing her daughter ahead of her. From the bend in the stairs she saw the light under the door go out. She hesitated, but carried on down.
In his dressing-gown Taffy lay on the bare mattress, arms straight at his sides, watching the light fade through the net curtains. The streetlamp came on, throwing a yellow trapezium on the flowered wallpaper and the pale areas where the pictures had hung, and, as if this was the signal triggering something in his brain, Taffy got up and began the final stage.
Opening his Airborne-issue bergen rucksack, he laid out his kit on the bed. DPM Para smock, olive green denim trousers, 'Hairy' KF woollen shirt, '58 pattern webbing order, cloth puttees, DMS rubber-soled boots, green lanyard for compass, maroon belt with regimental badge in bright metal on the circular buckle, maroon beret with matt-black cap badge. All present and correct, sah!
Taffy unscrewed the lid off the black boot polish and worked up a nice smooth paste with a globule of spit. Dipped the yellow cloth into it, set to with a will, bulling up the toe-caps. In the silent, darkened room Taffy polished industriously away, a frown of rapt concentration on his face.
'What time is it?'
Dillon, dressed only in jockey shorts and socks, carrying his uniform on a hanger, halted in mid-creep halfway across the bedroom floor. Susie's eyes watched him from above the covers as he hung the uniform on the wardrobe door. Dillon arched his back and crawled into bed with a groan. 'After two… I got terrible backache.'
'What time are you on in the morning?'
'Seven-thirty.' Dillon tried to relax, let the tension flow out of him. 'We've been sittin' in that car for twelve hours solid
'Well,' Susie retorted, 'at least you're sitting down.'
'Might have known I'd get no sympathy from you,' Dillon mumbled sleepily. He stretched and made a noise somewhere between a yawn and a groan, and snuggled down, totally whacked.
Crash!
From downstairs, but loud enough to wake the dead, Steve falling in through the front door, colliding with the bikes in the hall and thudding headlong to the floor.
Floating away on the soft pink billow of deep wonderful sleep, Dillon came bolt upright in the bed, eyes sticking out like organ stops. Another thud, clang of bike frames, and Dillon, realizing what it was, flopped back, the pillow over his head.
Steve, muttering drunkenly to himself, was now attempting the impossible, death-defying ascent of the stairs. Halfway up he missed his footing and tumbled to the bottom, landing with a thud that jarred the floorboards and made the wardrobe door swing open.
From the boys' room, a shrill plaintive 'Muuuu-mmmmmm!'
With a heavy sigh, Susie whopped the bedcovers aside and prepared to get up. Dillon whopped them back again.
'Leave it – just leave it!'
'But it sounds like he's fallen downstairs…'
'Good! Hope he's broken his ruddy neck!'
CHAPTER 12
There was a red line around Dillon's forehead where his cap had been. He drummed his fingers on the steering-wheel, glancing every now and then at Steve, bent over in the passenger seat with a Little Chef road map spread across his knees, marking the motorways with a felt-tip. Bloody wonder they'd ever got here. And how long had it taken them – over two hours? Jesus wept.
Dillon kept a wary eye on the clients, just in case. Three bags full, sir, that was the drill. At the moment they were on the farside of the cobbled yard, talking to a tall thin man wearing baggy cord trousers and a polo-necked sweater under a tweed jacket, trainer or stable manager, Dillon guessed. He didn't know it for a fact, but the horses all looked like thoroughbreds, a row of glossy necks and proud heads arched over the stable doors, lively, intelligent brown eyes. He wondered how many of them Ali Baba owned.
Dillon wrinkled his nose. Was that horseshit or what?
He said, 'And for chrissakes, Steve, make sure we get the right route back to London. We go the same way we got here, we'll never get back.' He leaned nearer, suspicions confirmed. 'An' I told you, use some deodorant, you stink!'
Steve sniffed his armpits. 'It's not me!' he protested, and nearly poked a hole through the map with his pen. 'Your fault – you said Newmarket was near Ascot!'
'Give. You always were bloody useless on directions.' Dillon snatched the map off him and glared at it with weary disgust. Thirty-grand silver Merc and they were using a Little Chef free road map to ferry their clients the length and breadth of the Home Counties…
'I told you, Steve, get a decent map… we need to check how we're going for gas.' There was a low rasping sound as Steve released a fart. 'Very funny,' Dillon said. He glanced worriedly at the fuel gauge. 'We got any cash?'