“All right, son?” one asked placidly, gathering the cards. “An act, is it?”
“As long as he’s not another Russian.” He gave me a grandfather’s smile. “No offense, laddie. They only come over here to do Dostoyevski and defect.”
“Aye. Always the second week—”
I swung the door out and dived. Somebody grabbed, shouted. Some lunatics applauded. “How real!” a woman cooed as I scooted past, bowling a bloke in armor over. God, he hurt. Another carrying a tray went flying. I sprinted flat out, hat gone and trousers cutting my speed, elbows out and head down. I charged, panicked into blindness, among a mob of red-coated soldiers. They were having a smoke, instruments held any old how, in a huge arched tunnel with sparse lights shedding hardly a glimmer. I floundered among them. A few laughed. There was floodlight ahead, a roaring up there, possibly a crowd. Well, it couldn’t be worse. “Here, nark it, Coco,” a trumpeter said, and got a roar by adding, “Thought it was Lieutenant Hartford.”
A gateway and an obstruction, for all the world like a portcullis. I rushed at it, bleating, demented. An order was barked behind in the tunnel, and I’d reached as far as I could go. I was gaping into an arena filled with bands. Jesus, the Household Cavalry were in there, searchlights shimmering a mass of instruments and horses’ ornamentation.
Lancers rode down one side. I could see tiers of faces round the vast arena. I moaned, turned back. Out there I’d be trapped like a fish in a bowl.
The soldiers formed up, marching easily past, some grinning. The drum major glared, abused me from the side of his mouth. The portcullis creaked. Applause and an announcement over the roar. The back-marker strode past, boots in time and the familiar double-tap of the big drum calling the instruments into noise. Gone. The entrance tunnel was empty. I couldn’t follow the band into the arena, so I turned. Best if I tried to get to George Street. Those Assembly Rooms…
I stopped. My moan echoed down the tunnel towards the exit. Dobson stood there, pointing. Two goons, overcoated neat as Sunday, appeared and stood with him.
“Help!” I screamed, turning to run. And halted. Round the side of the arena gateway stepped Sidoli’s nephews. Two more henchmen dropped from the tunnel archway, crouched a second, then straightened to stand with the Sidolis. Big Chas walked between them. Five in a row. Both ends of the tunnel were plugged. I was trapped.
“Now, lads,” I pleaded, swallowing with an audible gulp. Blubbering and screaming were non-negotiable. “Too many people have been hurt in all this…” The fairground men trudged towards me.
Dobson called, “He’s ours, tykes.”
“Ours,” a Sidoli said. The tunnel echoed, “Ow-erss, owerss.” He was Sidoli’s nephew all right.
No side doors in the tunnel’s wall. I stood, dithering. Big Chas’s line was maybe twenty yards away and coming steadily. Dobson’s pair had pulled out stubby blunt weapons. I thought, Oh, Christ. A war with me in the middle.
“Stop right there, Chas,” I said wearily. “You were good to me. You’ve no shooters, like them. It’s my own mess.”
And I walked towards Dobson. My only chance, really. And it bought me a couple of seconds. It bought me much more than that, as it happened. I moved on trembling pins towards my end. At least I now only had one army against me instead of two. More favorable odds, if doom wasn’t a certainty.
“No!” a Sidoli shouted. “Noh,” the tunnel yelled angrily.
Dobson backed smiling out of the tunnel entrance to where I’d first cannoned into the Guards band, his goons with him. I came on. They were in a perfect line. A stern warning cry, “Loof-yoy! No!” behind me.
If I’d known it would end like this, in a grotty tunnel, I’d have marched out into the arena with the band and hared up through the crowd somehow—
An engine gunned, roared. It seemed to fill the tunnel with its noise. I hesitated, found myself halted, gaping, as a slab lorry ran across the arch of pallor and simply swept Dobson and the two overcoats from view. And from the face of the earth. All in an instant, time stopped. To me, forever Dobson and the two nerks froze in a grotesque array, legs and arms any old how, in an airborne bundle with that fairground slab wagon revving past. They’re in that lethal tableau yet in my mind. Dobson’s expression gets me most, in the candle hours. It’s more of a let’s-talk-because-there’s-always-tomorrow sort of expectation on his face. But maybe I’m wrong because it was pretty gloomy, and Ern didn’t have any lights on as he crashed the wagon into and over Dobson and his nerks.
Footsteps alongside. I closed my eyes, waiting.
Big Chas’s hand fell on my shoulder. “Lovejoy,” he said, friendly, and sang, “Hear thy guardian angel say; ‘Thou art in the midst of foes: Watch and pray!’ ”
“I’m doing that, Chas,” I said.
Mr. Sidoli was overjoyed to see me; I wasn’t sure why. They gave me a glass of his special Barolo while I waited. I’d expected death. Unbelievably, I was left alone on the steps, though everybody I remembered came up and shook my hand. The fairground seemed to have grown. There was no sign of Bissolotti’s rival fair. Instead, a marquee boasted a dynamic art show, periodically lasering the darkness with a sky advert.
Francie rushed up to say everybody was proud of me. Her whiz kid was temporarily running the Antique Road Show. Like Tom the cabin boy, I smiled and said nothing, simply waited for this oddly happy bubble to burst.
It was twenty to midnight when I was called inside. Mr. Sidoli was in tears. His silent parliament was all around, celebrating and half sloshed.
“Loof-yoy,” he said, scraping my face with his mustache and dabbing his eyes. “What can I say?”
“Well, er.” Starting to hope’s always a bad sign.
“First,” he declaimed, “you bravely seize Bissolotti’s main generator, and crush his treacherous sneak attack.” He glowered. Everybody halted the rejoicing to glower. “And restrained yourself so strongly that you only destroyed three men.”
Scattered applause. “Bravo, bravo!”
“Destroyed? Ah, how actually destroyed…?”
His face fell. “Not totally, but never mind, Loof-yoy. Another occasion, si?” Laughter all round. “Then you cleverly tell the police it is my generator, so I can collect it and hold Bissolotti to ransom.”
This time I took a bow. The nephews burst into song.
“And at the arena you bravely tried to spare my nephews then the risk when they go to help you, knowing how close to my heart…” He sobbed into a hankie the size of a bath towel. Everybody sniffled, coughed, drank. I even felt myself fill up.
“And you walk forward into certain death!”
I was gripped in powerful arms. Ern and Chas sang a martial hymn. Fists thumped my back.
When you think of it, I really had been quite courageous. In fact, very brave. Not many blokes have faced two mobs down. It must be something about my gimlet eyes. You must admit that some blokes have this terrific quality, and others don’t.
Joan was watching in her usual silence. Her eyes met mine. Well, I thought, suddenly on the defensive. I’d been almost nearly brave, hadn’t I? I mean, honestly? Joan smiled, right into my eyes, silly cow. She’s the sort of woman who can easily nark a bloke. I’d often noticed that.
They’d have finished the auction in Tachnadray.
It was three o’clock in the morning before I remembered Tinker. Sidoli’s lads found him paralytic drunk busking in George Street, Dutchie doing a political chain dance round his political granite block. Without a bean, or even a hacksaw, they’d done the best they could, which was to scrounge from an affable public to tunes from Tinker’s mouth organ. Tinker said we’d all go halves. His beret was full of coins, enough for a boozy breakfast for us all.