“There’s one more question, Lord Moggerhanger, if I may, now that this debriefing seems to have run its course. Can I have a few days furlough?”
“Take as long as you like, but leave a phone number with Alice, in case I need you in the meantime.”
“Will do. And if I notice myself tailed by any of the Green Toe Gang in the meantime, can I have the key to Peppercorn Cottage? It’s a good place to hide up in.”
“Michael, I’d do anything for your peace of mind.” He opened a drawer, sorted a key, and handed it over. I hoped it was the right one, and didn’t discover it wasn’t till it was in the lock.
“All you have to do is tell me when you’re using the place. You can go now. I’m a busy man.” He stood by the door leading to his private part of the house. “I must see how pleased Agnes is with the halva and other choice items you brought back.” He called her name on going out, me hoping he would stuff her with all the goodies.
Mrs Blemish smiled. “Congratulations, Michael. I saw how you were worried. He can be a little menacing at times.” She put her lips to my ear. “He’s a terrible criminal.”
“Yes, and he’s generous, as you say. The kitchen might be wired for sound,” I whispered, and gave a warning wink. “I’m very happy to be employed by him. He pays very well.”
She bridled at the notion, face reddening with shame, which led me to wonder whether she too couldn’t become an ally in my scheme of finding evidence to nail him.
“I would have to leave, if that was the case,” she said. “I couldn’t abide being spied on.”
“It’s only my little jest”—or I hoped it was. “There’s some washing from my trip, just underwear and a few shirts. Will it be all right if I put it in the machine?”
“If you give it to me I’ll see to it.”
“I must go now. And many thanks for the lunch. If I see Percy on my travels I’ll give him a clip around the earhole and send him back to you suitably penitent, though you may need to rub a pint of witch hazel on the bruises.”
Outside, I looked at the cheque. Five thousand pounds. I couldn’t deny a shock of gratification, though questioned whether such an amount was the wages of sin, or a bribe to keep my lips glued. Probably both. Then I thought that if Moggerhanger’s empire fell how would I live when no more such cheques were forthcoming? It would be foolhardy to pull his industry down, and exist on giros for the rest of my life.
On the other hand what socially responsible nature I had told me that mercenary considerations ought not to be entertained, and that if I could ruin Moggerhanger I would be a hero and a benefit for all mankind, at least for the powder heads, meaning most people these days.
Worldliness then clocked back in to say that if Moggerhanger did go bang other firms would be more than ready to leap into the gap, especially the Green Toe Gang, who had wanted to plug such a hole for years. Only the powder heads and shooters-up could stop the trade, by no longer using his goods, and they were incapable of doing so.
My animosity being personal to Moggerhanger, why didn’t I therefore ingratiate myself with the Green Toe Gang, and put the kibosh on him that way? They’d already had convincing evidence of my qualities and, with all I could tell them about Moggerhanger’s business, would willingly take me on.
I paced the yard, to think my options over. Jock was washing the Roller, and I didn’t offer to give him a hand, which to his credit wasn’t expected. I came to no conclusion, but looked at the cheque again to see whether sufficient was miswritten to stop it being honoured. Since all was in order, I would put it into my account as soon as possible, at which sensible decision I went up to the flat and slept.
Chapter Sixteen
Hatchbacks scooted like blackclocks around my brain. It’s only a dream, I told myself in the dream. Didn’t someone say life itself was a dream? My grandfather’s big wooden mallet squashed the beetles flat. I heard them crack under every blow but it made no difference because they turned into boats and floated here and there to find a landing. Someone pulled the plug, and daylight flooded in.
I woke up wondering where I was. Dreams only meant that you had been down deep, which had to be good. I was safely back in Moggerhanger’s flat above the garage, but how safe was safe after his warning on my vulnerability from the Green Toe Gang? I couldn’t know that whatever he’d said about spreading the word among them that I was not to be touched was worth the breath it was blurted on. No one could live forever in a state of alertness, yet I had to be ready for any onset of peril, while confidently assuming that my instinct for self-preservation would look after me.
If Moggerhanger was playing cat and mouse to see whether someone of my expertise would enter into negotiations with the Green Toe Gang, as a test of loyalty to him (he had a liking for such machinations) he could get stuffed, since I was the one who could well be playing the same game with him, and should I come to believe he was pressing me too close on that front I would send a stamped and self-addressed envelope in a letter to Oscar Cross offering my services.
Walking down to the Mall to put my money in the bank I noticed two old people kissing at a bus stop. Such public billing and cooing at their age was rare, and I supposed that at seventy-odd they went at it at home like rabbits in a thunderstorm. If they were man and wife there was no life on vinegar hill for them, who had no doubt been making love since fourteen, in which time he had pumped sufficient in to fill a swimming pool, and she had come enough for her cries to reach heaven. They looked fit to be banging away with mutually adoring exertion at ninety, to be found dead by one of their twelve children in each other’s arms.
Leaving them to their snogging I wondered whether, being a marked man, I would reach that age and still be going at it. I certainly would be if I did, which merry notion took me into the bank, and then out knowing that at least the cheque was safe enough to pay for a few more weeks of life.
I thought of calling on Frances, but she wouldn’t be home from the surgery till six, so to get my legs in shape after so much motoring I headed for Notting Hill Gate, where I’d take the Tube into Soho. I was alone, but the sky was mine, and if any of Oscar Cross’s Green Toe Gang tailed me they’d have a job keeping up, because I walked faster than anybody except Bill Straw in full infantry spate.
A dead straight condensation trail, turning woolly at the lowest height, came from a jumbo jet, and I wanted to be on it but, a dab hand at sensing trouble, I did a bit of jinking in case someone was at my heels, excited at the thought of Bruce Loggerheads from the GTG behind me, who I could waylay on one of the many turnings to Goldhawk Road and give him a fright.
Trees were budding along Holland Road, in spite of traffic smoke, but when rain sheeted down I buttoned my mackintosh and slogged on. At the Gate I bought a Times, and escalated to the Central Line for Tottenham Court Road.
The Palm Oiled Cat was my favourite Soho Pub. Wayland Smith was at the bar, a well-built middle-aged man who worked for the BBC. An unrepentant Marxist, he sported a short grey Lenin-style beard and steel-rimmed spectacles. Except in the blaze of summer he wore a long leather overcoat to look like a commissar, and a brown fur hat made from a nondescript Siberian tomcat. Or maybe he’d trapped it himself at Daub and Wattle Cottage in Wiltshire. He gave an icy it’s-off-to-the-Gulag-for-you-my-lad smile. “Good to see you, Cullen.”
My pint tasted rotten, but at least I was drinking it in Soho. “Still working for the Beeb, Wayland, dumbing down all those shows?”
This was maligning him and the Great Corporation, for their efforts to keep the populace docile instead of being out on the streets throwing bricks at illegal immigrant and government ministers. It wasn’t hard to twit him in that rig, but another smile made him seem more human, though I knew better. “We only give the people what they want,” he said. “But how are you getting along?” He always handed out as good as he got: “Still in the smuggling trade?”