‘He went to the loo. I thought it was OK – he’s done it OK before and always come back. This time he didn’t. The hotel receptionist said she saw him walking towards Piccadilly.’
I feel a set of cold fingers clutch my guts. ‘You said where?’
‘Piccadilly, in London. You said take them out, so I thought a day in London…’
I want to shout and scream at him, and tell him what a stupid, naive great pillock he is. But it’s no use. It’s not his fault – it’s mine. Then I consider it. There’s as much chance of them hiding successfully in the Smoke as anywhere else. Better, in fact. Just as long as they don’t happen to walk past a certain office block in the West End just as The Chairman comes out.
‘OK,’ I say calmly. ‘You did good, Malc. Can you leave Ellen there and go look for him? I’ll be with you as soon as I can.’
He gives me the name of the hotel and I cut the connection. I have to get to The Chairman and get him to pull his dogs off. I don’t know what I’ll have to do, but there must be a way.
The Chairman is out and his secretary doesn’t know when he’ll be back. She won’t ring him, either. There’s no sign of Hooper or Patrick.
I drive along to Piccadilly and find the hotel where Malcolm has holed up with Aunt Ellen. It’s small and posh and they’ll have thought it beats the Savoy hands down.
Aunt Ellen answers when I call on the house phone. Malcolm has just called to say he’s found Uncle Howard and they’re on their way back to the hotel. I breathe a sigh of relief and tell her to stay where she is, then go downstairs to meet them.
Hooper is standing on the pavement, flicking his cigarette lighter.
He looks totally incongruous in that setting, and the hotel doorman is eyeing him with definite concern.
The Land Cruiser is at the kerb behind him, with Patrick in the driving seat. In the back sits the crumpled figure of Uncle Howard. Alongside him, Malcolm fills the other seat, looking drawn and pale and seemingly asleep.
‘Hey, man,’ says Hooper, grinning, his speech a deliberate Caribbean drawl. He normally talks straight London. ‘Guess who we foun’ walkin’ long the street jus’ now. I say to Patrick, I say, “Man, doesn’t that look like Mr Connelly’s big brother and his daffy uncle?” An’ sure enough, it is.’
As I begin to move, he steps in my way, a hand on my chest. In the car, Patrick is leaning back, his hand alarmingly close to Uncle Howard’s windpipe. He could snap it in an instant, the move says.
‘What say we go for a ride?’ says Hooper, dropping the drawl. He stands aside and I climb in alongside Patrick. Hooper slides in next to Uncle Howard, who smiles in a friendly, vague manner and doesn’t know me from a tent peg. To him, it’s all part of another day. Malcolm is breathing heavily and has a large bruise on the side of his handsome face.
The Land Cruiser blasts off and we twist and turn through the streets towards Paddington. In minutes we’re running alongside some railway arches and pull up at one with large double doors. The rest of the street is deserted save for a mangy dog and two kids on bikes. At a look from Hooper, all three disappear.
We’re bundled inside and the doors close. We’re in some sort of workshop, the air thick with the smell of oil, grease and burned metal, the floor littered with scrap paper, fags ends and small twists of shaved metal, iron filings, the lot. On one wall is a storage rack full of lengths of steel, like giant knitting needles, and around the other walls is a collection of benches and machines, the use of which I can only guess at. Metalwork wasn’t really my subject at school.
Hooper produces a blowtorch and fires it up, while Patrick looks on, holding a length of half-inch steel rod.
Uncle Howard is staring at everyone in turn, not alarmed, merely curious. His gentle eyes alight on a metal lathe in one corner, and he smiles in vague recognition. He used to work in a factory years before. He probably feels comfortable in this sort of place.
I look at Malcolm slumped against one wall, wishing him awake. If there’s anyone who can help us it’s Malcolm, with his enormous shoulders and powerful hands. Only I know he won’t. Big as he is, he’s got as much aggression in him as a cotton bud.
Hooper steps across to Uncle Howard and shows him the blowtorch. The old man looks at the cold, blue flame hissing away in front of him with a half-frown, and I wonder if the confused and tangled brain cells inside his head can still recognise danger.
I’m standing alongside a workbench. It’s clear apart from one of those old pump-handled oil cans with a long nozzle. I reach out and bang my hand on the pump. Nothing. Hooper laughs and Patrick looks at me in disgust, like he’d expected it. He starts towards me with his steel rod, and I guess he’s been waiting for something like this so he can have some fun.
I pump again and a jet of oil spits out and catches Hooper square in the face. It slicks across his cheeks, a thick, glutinous stain, and enters his eyes. He blinks, or tries to. Then he swears ferociously and tries to wipe it away. It just makes things worse.
By now Patrick is building up speed, the steel rod whistling through the air towards me. Only he’s forgotten what workshops are like. He’s forgotten the electric chain pulley for lifting the metal into position at the machines; he’s forgotten the power lines that scatter the air in a tangle above our heads.
The tip of the rod is supposed to connect to my head. Instead, it hits the engine casing of the chain pulley with a dull, heavy thud, and travelling with the full force of Patrick’s shoulder. The shock goes up the rod and into his arm, and pain registers on his face. Nerveless fingers can’t hold onto the weapon, and it falls to the ground.
I don’t waste time scooping it up; I grab the nearest piece of hanging chain and throw my body to one side, using my weight to pull as hard as I can. For a nanosecond the chain pulley doesn’t want to move. Then it goes and gathers momentum and rumbles along its greased track above me. I can feel the weight carrying it along as I let go of the chain, the heavy links clanking together as they swing through the air. On the end of the chain is a giant, steel hook which gets momentarily left behind.
Hooper is too busy swearing and trying to scrape oil out of his eyes to notice what I’ve done, and looks for Uncle Howard, the blowtorch coming round.
But Uncle Howard isn’t there. Somewhere deep in the recesses of his damaged brain is a reflex which tells him from his years in a factory that he has to move; that with heavy machinery in a noisy workshop, not all warnings can be heard and you have to have eyes in the back of your head. In spite of his age and condition, his upper body sways like a boxer, moving just enough to avoid the deadly sling-shot rush of the heavy hook as it tries to catch up with the engine block.
It swishes harmlessly past him and hits Hooper dead square. In the split second before impact, the Yardie’s eyes seem to clear of oil and he sees what is about to hit him. But it’s too late and he’s gone, swept aside with a brief, soggy smack and tossed lifeless into a corner.
Patrick is snarling, trying to ignore the pain of his nerveless fingers. He picks up the steel rod with his other hand.
But this time there’s an added complication: Malcolm has finally come to, and he rises up and stands in front of him like his own reflection. For the first time Patrick seems to realise he isn’t the only big man in the world.
He whips the rod round in a scything arc, and I wait and wonder, because Malcolm has never had a fight in his life. He’s never had to and he doesn’t know how. For him, fighting is pointless.
But maybe he inherited something else from our stevedore grandfather. Like instinct. With no more effort than catching a fly, he opens his hand and takes the rod, the sound a dull smack in the silence. Patrick looks stunned and tries to pull it clear. Malcolm pulls back, only harder. As Patrick hurls towards him, my big brother steps forward and puts out his elbow, catching him under the chin with a dull crack. Patrick flies backwards then stands still, eyes filling with what looks like unimaginable pain and surprise.