A gritty floorcloth was being pulled across my face, and I opened my eyes to see Dismal on the bed. Then I heard Bill Straw downstairs shouting that he wouldn’t mind a cup of tea and six fried eggs after hitch-hiking all the way from Lincoln.
His demanding voice brought me back to life. I dressed and shaved, and found him sitting by an empty plate in the kitchen, trying to cajole Bridgitte into grilling some beef sausages. ‘Thanks, Michael. That’s one more life I owe you. You took long enough about it, though.’
‘I didn’t get back till yesterday, and I posted the money within ten minutes of reading your letter.’
He wiped the fat off his plate with a piece of bread and it was halfway to his mouth when Dismal took it. He looked at Maria: ‘Get me some more to eat, duck, will you?’
‘Didn’t they feed you in prison?’ I asked.
‘Prison?’ Bridgitte looked away with shock. ‘I suppose all your friends are jailbirds?’
‘I was only in two days,’ Bill said, ‘so don’t get like that, duck. It was a case of mistaken identity and false arrest. A graver miscarriage of justice I’ve never been involved in. They gave me a good breakfast, though, before I left this morning. It was so big I thought they were going to hang me.’
‘Tell me about it later,’ I said.
Bridgitte went out, and Bill nodded towards Maria, who put more sausages and bacon under the grill. ‘Who’s she, then?’ I introduced them. ‘She’s lovely,’ he said.
Maria smiled as she plied the spatula.
‘She’s here to help out.’ I’d intended to say she was pregnant, but didn’t — I can’t think why.
He couldn’t stop looking at her. ‘A gem, a real bloody gem. Is she foreign?’
‘She’s from Portugal.’
‘Do you know, Michael, I never use long words, but if anybody was to ask me, I’d say she was exquisite.’
‘I serve you in dining room.’ The Gem went before us with a tray. Rain beaded down the windows, and it seemed a good day to be indoors eating breakfast at three in the afternoon. ‘Tell me what went wrong in your great venture to the outside world,’ I said when we made a start on the big black teapot.
He put two pieces of bread and butter together and began to eat. ‘Michael, forgive me if I chide you, but your sarcasm worries me. You didn’t used to be like that. Sarcastic people aren’t usually successful in life, and I wouldn’t like that to happen to you.’
‘I’m a bit on edge,’ I said, ‘what with one thing and another. I’ll tell you what happened to me since I last saw you, and then you’ll know why.’ Maria came in with our full-house English breakfast, and I marvelled at how much Bridgitte had taught her in such a short time. Bill was about to pat her on the arse, but a look warned him off, smitten though he was. While we wolfed our commons I recounted my trip, though managed to leave out my meeting with Agnes and my homecoming at which I’d been informed that Maria was pregnant.
‘That puts us in the same mess,’ he said. ‘If I was you, though, I’d go and see Moggerhanger and find out what the score is. In this kind of business you don’t know who was at fault. All you know is that you did your duty, and now that you’ve survived you’re worth twice as much to Moggerhanger than if you had failed.’
‘My mind boggles,’ I said.
‘Don’t you see? If he sent you there to make a genuine delivery, you’ve nothing to worry about. You did deliver it, after all, whatever it was. Didn’t you?’
‘For God’s sake,’ I said.
‘Granted. What’s more, you don’t know what arrangements he had for the stuff when it left your hands. That’s not your business to speculate about. If he sent you over to get you killed — and I think only your hyper-active imagination could suggest such a thing — now that you’ve beat ’em he’ll have to welcome you back into the fold. Once there, you’ll be too big to be knocked off. Or too useful. He’s got the others to think about, but if you stay on the run your life won’t be worth a light.’
He didn’t realise that Moggerhanger already knew I was home again. ‘I wonder whose side you’re on?’
He put his knife and fork down, so I knew things were serious. ‘Michael, listen to reason. I realise your instinct is to kill Moggerhanger. It may be understandable, but — bide your time. You may be cunning, but you’re not cunning enough. Nobody is. You don’t have a tactical brain quick enough, nor the sort of cool thought pattern that stops you just this side of ruthlessness. Cunning without tactical appreciation always leads to unthinking cruelty, which is no good to man nor beast. If you’re ruthless without due consideration your opponent may become your victim, but you might also put yourself in the way of becoming his. Savvy?’
‘I’ll think about it.’
He finished his breakfast in one great swipe across the plate. ‘I would, if I was you.’
‘How can you be so thin,’ I asked, ‘when you eat so much?’
He gave me his wide Worksop grin. ‘I burn it off. It’s thought that does it, Michael. I never stop thinking.’
‘You could have fooled me.’ I was careful to smile. ‘But tell me your story.’
‘Pass the marmalade, and I’ll start.’
‘Go on, then.’
‘I went to Somers Town, and there was Toffeebottle standing as large as life by the corner of the street. I knew that if I went to my room, even in my disguise, I was a goner, and so was my cash. I backtracked it, hoping he hadn’t seen me, and got up to Goole as easy as pie. Taking Dismal was the best idea I had. I just stood by the road, held up my white stick and touched my dark glasses like Maurice Chevalier his hat, and had them bumper to bumper fighting to pick me up. “I’m going up north to see my brother,” I said, “I’m almost blind, and if it wasn’t for my faithful dog I wouldn’t be able to get around at all.” While Dismal jumped in the back, the man (or sometimes woman, because a blind man with a guide dog like Dismal couldn’t possibly get up to any dirty business) got out and opened the door for me in case I missed my target and walked out into the road and got killed. I must say, though, that with my new rig on, which included one of Major Blaskin’s hats — I hope he hasn’t missed it yet — I knew I couldn’t be recognised when I went snooping around Goole.
‘My journey up was a treat — only three lifts, as a matter of fact. One chap who took me straight up the Al to the Doncaster cut-off even stopped and bought me a meal, and I tell you, when I’d finished I could hardly move. Even Dismal was so full he scraped along on his belly to the door. Everybody seemed to love him all the more for it, though he’s a terrible farter, by the way. I can’t understand when people talk about a dog’s life. And the man paid up without a murmur, though I offered my share. He owned a few shops in Barkdale and drove a nice big Ford Granada, but he was just an ordinary chap like you and me, about fifty-five, I’d say. I told him about my adventures in the Merchant Navy, when I’d had my sight damaged in a fire.’
‘I didn’t know you’d ever been in the Merchant Navy.’
As Maria cleared the table he looked at her with a mixture of longing and sheer lechery. ‘Michael, when somebody out of the goodness of his heart has given you a lift, it behoves you to entertain him if he’s half in the mind to hear it. Anyway, he then told me about his three sons, who all won scholarships at eleven and went up through the system till they got to the best universities. The eldest is one of the wonder boys at Marconi, another’s in computers in America and the third’s just got his master’s degree in modern languages at Oxford. I suppose there are thousands of families like that, Michael, and they keep the country running. It gives me faith, honest it does. Merit triumphs. There’s hope for us yet.’