I bent down and picked up the Leaning Tower by its top two storeys. As Tonio had said, it was heavy. Bruised-muscle-tearingly heavy. Tomorrow its effects would be awful. Fair enough. Tomorrow would be much more awful if I put it down again... or if I missed.
The Rolls came towards me as slowly as Tonio had driven away. If I’d been sober I’d have had all the time in the world. As it was, I misjudged the pace and all but let him go cruising by.
Down one step. Don’t trip. Across the pavement. Hurry. Swung the wrought-iron Tower round with both hands as if I was throwing the hammer and forgot to leave go. Its weight and momentum pulled me after it; but although at the last moment Ross saw me and tried to swerve away, the heavy metal base crashed exactly where I wanted it. Drunks’ luck. Dead centre of the windscreen.
Scrunch went the laminated glass in a radiating star. Silver cracks streaked across Ross’s vision. The huge car swerved violently out into the centre of the road and then in towards the kerb as Ross stamped on the brakes. A screech of tyres, a scraping jolt. The Rolls stopped abruptly at a sharp angle to the pavement with its rear end inviting attention from the police. No police appeared to pay attention. A great pity. I wouldn’t have minded being scooped in for being drunk and disorderly and disturbing the peace...
I had rebounded off the smooth side of the big car and fallen in a heap in the road. The Rolls had stopped, and that was that. Job done. No clear thought of self-preservation spearheaded its way through the mist in my head. I didn’t remember that Tonio’s. solid front door stood open only a few yards away. Jelly had taken over from bone in my legs. Welbeck Street had started revolving around me and was taking its time over straightening out.
It was Ross who picked me up. Ross with his truncheon. I was past caring much what he did with it: and what he intended, I don’t know, because this time I was saved by the bell in the shape of a party of people in evening dress who came out into the street from a neighbouring house. They had cheerful, gay voices full of a happy evening, and they exclaimed in instant sympathy over the plight of the Rolls.
‘I say, do you need any help...?’
‘Shall we call anyone... the police, or anything?’
‘Can we give you a lift...?’
‘Or call a garage?’
‘No thank you,’ said Vjoersterod in his most charming voice. ‘So kind of you... but we can manage.’
Ross picked me to my feet and held on grimly to my arm. Vjoersterod was saying, ‘We’ve been having a little trouble with my nephew. I’m afraid he’s very drunk... still, once we get him home everything will be all right.’
They murmured sympathetically. Began to move away.
‘S’not true,’ I shouted. ‘They’ll prob’ly kill me.’ My voice sounded slurred and much too melodramatic. They paused, gave Vjoersterod a group of sympathetic, half-embarrassed smiles, and moved off up the street.
‘Hey,’ I called. ‘Take me with you.’
Useless. They didn’t even look back.
‘What now?’ Ross said to Vjoersterod.
‘We can’t leave him here. Those people would remember.’
‘In the car?’
While Vjoersterod nodded he shoved me towards the Rolls, levering with his grasp on my right arm. I swung at him with the left, and missed completely. I could see two of him, which made it difficult. Between them they more or less slung me into the back of the car and I sprawled there face down, half on and half off the seat, absolutely furious that I still could not climb out of that crippling alcoholic stupor. There was a ringing in my head like the noise of the livid green corridors of gas at the dentist’s. But no stepped-up awakening to daylight and the taste of blood. Just a continuing extraordinary sensation of being conscious and unconscious, not alternately, but both at once.
Ross knocked out a few of the worst-cracked pieces of the windscreen and started the car.
Vjoersterod, sitting beside him, leaned over the back of his seat and said casually, ‘Where to, Mr Tyrone? Which way to your wife?’
‘Round and round the mulberry bush,’ I mumbled indistinctly. ‘And goodnight to you too.’
He let go with four-letter words which were much more in keeping with his character than his usual elevated chat.
‘It’s no good,’ Ross said disgustedly. ‘He won’t tell us unless we take him to pieces and even then... if we did get it out of him... what good would it do? He’ll never write for you. Never.’
‘Why not?’ said Vjoersterod obstinately.
‘Well, look at it this way. We threatened to kill his wife. Does he knuckle under? Yes, as long as we’re there. The moment our backs are turned, first thing he does is to move her out. We follow, find her, he shifts her off again... That could go on and on. All we can do more is actually kill her, and if we do that we’ve no hold on him anyway. So he’ll never write for you, whatever we do.’
Full marks, I said to myself fatuously. Masterly summing up of the situation. Top of the class.
‘You didn’t hit him hard enough,’ Vjoersterod said accusingly, sliding out of the argument.
‘I did.’
‘You can’t have.’
‘If you remember,’ Ross said patiently, ‘Charlie Boston’s boys made no impression either. They either do or don’t respond to the treatment. This one doesn’t. Same with the threats. Same with the drink. Usually one method is enough. This time we use all three, just to make sure. And where do we get? We get nowhere at all. Just like Gunther Braunthal last year.’
Vjoersterod grunted. I wondered remotely what had become of Gunther Braunthal. Decided I didn’t really want to know.
‘I can’t afford for him to get away with it,’ Vjoersterod said.
‘No,’ Ross agreed.
‘I don’t like disposals in England,’ Vjoersterod went on in irritation. ‘Too much risk. Too many people everywhere.’
‘Leave it to me,’ Ross said calmly.
I struggled up into a sitting position, propping myself up on my hands. Looked out of the side window. Lights flashing past, all one big whirl. We weren’t going very fast, on account of the broken windscreen, but the December night air swept into the car in gusts, freezing me in my cotton shirt. In a minute, when my head cleared a fraction, I would open the door and roll out. We weren’t going very fast... If I waited for a bit of main street, with people... couldn’t wait too long. Didn’t want Ross attending to my disposal.
Vjoersterod’s head turned round my way. ‘You’ve only yourself to thank, Mr Tyrone. You shouldn’t have crossed me. You should have done what I said. I gave you your chance. You’ve been very stupid, Mr Tyrone. Very stupid indeed. And now, of course, you’ll be paying for it.’
‘Huh?’ I said.
‘He’s still drunk,’ Ross said. ‘He doesn’t understand.’
‘I’m not so sure. Look what he’s done in the past hour. He’s got a head like a bullet.’
My eyes suddenly focussed on something outside. Something I knew, that everyone knew. The Aviary in Regent’s Park, pointed angular wire opposite the main entrance to the Zoo. Been there before with Vjoersterod. He must be staying somewhere near there, I thought. Must be taking me to where he lived. It didn’t matter that it was near the Zoo. What did matter was that this was also the way to the nursing home where Tonio had taken Elizabeth. It was less than a mile ahead.
I thought for one wild horror-stricken moment that I must have told Vjoersterod where to go; then remembered and knew I hadn’t. But he was much too close. Much too close. Supposing his way home took him actually past the nursing home, and he saw the van... saw them unloading Elizabeth even... He might change his mind and kill her and leave me alive... which would be unbearable, totally and literally unbearable.