‘But I wouldn’t let him go,’ he said, like a scolded schoolboy.
‘All the same...’ Yardman came behind me and bent down to check that his chains were still effective, which unfortunately they were. ‘You look so gentle, dear boy,’ he said into my ear. ‘So misleading, isn’t it?’
They went away and left me alone. I had another go at the chains, tantalised by the Cessna standing so close behind me: but this time Yardman had been more careful. The girder was rooted in concrete, the chain wouldn’t fray like rope, and try as I might I couldn’t slide my hands out.
Little time to go, I thought. And no questions left. There wasn’t much profit in knowing the answers, since in a very short while I would know nothing at all. I thought about that too. I didn’t believe in any form of after life. To die was to finish. I’d been knocked out several times in racing falls, and death was just a knockout from which one didn’t awake. I couldn’t honestly say that I much feared it. I never had. Undoubtedly on my part a defect of the imagination, a lack of sensitivity. All I felt was a strong reluctance to leave the party so soon when there was so much I would have liked to do. But there was the messy business of Billy to be got through first... and I admitted gloomily to myself that I would have avoided that if I could have dredged up the smallest excuse.
Alf shuffled into the hangar, went across to the rack of gardening tools and took down a spade. I shouted to him, but he showed no sign of having heard, and disappeared as purposefully as he’d come.
More minutes passed. I spent them thinking about Gabriella. Gabriella alive and loving, her solemnity a crust over depths of warmth and strength. A girl for always. For what was left of always.
The lorry came back, halted briefly outside, and rumbled away into the distance. Yardman and all his crew except Alf trooped into the hangar. Giuseppe walked past me across to the sliding doors at the back and opened a space behind the Citroen. A cool draught blew in and sent the dust round in little squirls on the concrete floor, and outside the sky was an intense velvety black.
Yardman said, ‘Right Billy. If the new crew are on time, we’ll be back with them in a little over an hour. I want you ready to go then, immediately the plane has taken off. All jobs done. Understood?’
‘O.K.’ Billy nodded. ‘Relax.’
Yardman walked over and paused in front of me, looking down with a mixture of regret and satisfaction.
‘Good-bye, my dear boy.’
‘Good-bye,’ I answered politely.
His taut mouth twisted. He looked across at Billy. ‘Take no chances, Billy, do you understand? You underestimate this man. He’s not one of your fancy nitwits, however much you may want him to be. You ought to know that by now. And Billy, I’m warning you, I’m warning you my dear Billy, that if you should let him escape at this stage, knowing everything that he does, you may as well put one of your little bullets through your own brain, because otherwise, rest assured, my dear Billy, I will do it for you.’
Even Billy was slightly impressed by the cold menace in Yardman’s usually uninflected voice. ‘Yeah,’ he said uneasily. ‘Well he won’t bloody escape, not a chance.’
‘Make sure of it.’ Yardman nodded, turned, and went and sat in the front passenger seat of the Citroen. Giuseppe beside him started the engine, reversed the car out of the hangar, and drove smoothly away, Yardman facing forwards and not looking back. Billy slid the door shut again behind them and came slowly across the concrete, putting his feet down carefully and silently like a stalker. He stopped four paces away, and the silence slowly thickened.
Rous-Wheeler cleared his throat nervously, and it sounded loud.
Billy flicked him a glance. ‘Go for a walk,’ he said.
‘A... walk?’
‘Yeah, a walk. One foot in front of the other.’ He was offensive. ‘Down the runway and back should just about do it.’
Rous-Wheeler understood. He wouldn’t meet my eyes and he hadn’t even enough humanity to plead for me. He turned his back on the situation and made for the exit. So much for the old school tie.
‘Now,’ said Billy. ‘Just the two of us.’
Chapter Sixteen
He walked cat-footed round the hangar in his quiet shoes, looking for things. Eventually he came back towards me carrying an old supple broken bicycle chain and a full flat five gallon tin of petrol. I looked at these objects with what I hoped was fair impassiveness and refrained from asking what he intended to do with them. I supposed I would find out soon enough.
He squatted on his haunches and grinned at me, his face level with mine, the bicycle chain in one hand and the petrol can on the floor in the other. His gun was far away, on the bench.
‘Ask me nicely,’ he said. ‘And I’ll make it easy.’
I didn’t believe him anyway. He waited through my silence and sniggered.
‘You will,’ he said. ‘You’ll ask all right, your sodding lordship.’
He brought forward the bicycle chain, but instead of hitting me with it as I’d expected he slid it round my ankle and tied it there into two half hitches. He had difficulty doing this but once the knots were tied the links looked like holding for ever. The free end he led through the handle of the petrol can and again bent it back on itself into knots. When he had finished there was a stalk of about six inches between the knots on my ankle and those on the can. Billy picked up the can and jerked it. My leg duly followed, firmly attached. Billy smiled, well satisfied. He unscrewed the cap of the can and let some of the petrol run out over my feet and make a small pool on the floor. He screwed the cap back on, but looser.
Then he went round behind the girder and unlocked both the padlocks on my wrists. The chain fell off, but owing to a mixture of surprise and stiffened shoulders I could do nothing towards getting my hands down to undo the bicycle chain before Billy was across the bay for his gun and turning with it at the ready.
‘Stand up,’ he said. ‘Nice and easy. If you don’t, I’ll throw this in the petrol.’ This, in his left hand, was a cigarette lighter: a gas lighter with a top which stayed open until one snapped it shut. The flame burned bright as he flicked his thumb.
I stood up stiffly, using the girder for support, the sick and certain knowledge of what Billy intended growing like a lump of ice in my abdomen. So much for not being afraid of death. I had changed my mind about it. Some forms were worse than others.
Billy’s mouth curled. ‘Ask, then,’ he said.
I didn’t. He waved his pistol slowly towards the floor. ‘Outside, matey. I’ve a little job for you to do. Careful now, we don’t want a bleeding explosion in here if we can help it.’ His face was alight with greedy enjoyment. He’d never had such fun in his life. I found it definitely irritating.
The can was heavy as I dragged it along with slow steps to the door and through on to the grass outside. Petrol slopped continuously in small amounts through the loosened cap, leaving a highly inflammable trail in my wake. The night air was sweet and the stars were very bright. There was no moon. A gentle wind. A beautiful night for flying.
‘Turn right,’ Billy said behind me. ‘That’s Alf along there where the light is. Go there, and don’t take too bloody long about it, we haven’t got all night.’ He sniggered at his feeble joke.
Alf wasn’t more than a tennis court away, but I was fed up with the petrol can before I got there. He had been digging, I found. A six or seven foot square of grass had been cut out, the turf lying along one edge in a tidy heap, and about a foot of earth had been excavated into a crumbling mound. A large torch standing on the pile of turf shone on Alf’s old face as he stood in the shallow hole. He held the spade loosely and looked at Billy enquiringly.