“What, then?”
Frustrated, Hinchcliffe turns his back on me and kicks what’s left of the door shut. Rufus flinches at the noise, then shuffles farther away, trying to move deeper into the house and hoping neither of us will notice. I start to feel marginally more confident, as it seems I’m not the problem here. Someone else has pissed him off.
“I run this place,” he says, turning around and advancing toward me menacingly, pointing his finger into my face. I take a step back to get out of his way and trip and fall back onto the stairs again. I’ve never seen him like this before. He’s incensed, barely able to keep his anger suppressed. I need to watch my step here and choose my next words carefully. Don’t want to do anything that’s going to push him over the edge.
“I know you run Lowestoft. Everyone here knows it.”
“Yes, but those fuckers up there don’t,” he yells, jabbing his finger skyward.
“Yes, but—”
“But nothing. I need to keep control here. I need to know exactly what’s going on. I can’t have people doing things that I can’t control, you understand?”
I’m not sure I do.
“So did they just fly over? Just happen to come across the town by chance?”
He shakes his head and massages his temples. “No, they flew circuits. Put on a proper fucking show. They might have found us by chance, but they definitely checked everything out properly before they left.”
“So what type of plane was it?”
“What?” he asks, confused.
“What type of plane? Military? A jet or bomber?”
He shakes his head again. “No, nothing like that.”
“What, then?”
“Just a little plane. Two- or four-seater, something like that.”
“So what’s the problem? Someone probably just got lucky and managed to get a plane up and—”
“What’s the problem?!” he screams at me, storming forward again, now so close that I can feel his hot, booze-tinged breath on my face. “What’s the problem? The problem is that they’re doing something I can’t. I can’t allow anyone to have that kind of advantage over me.”
“A little plane? Is that really such an advantage?”
“Well, if you’d been here like you should have been, McCoyne, you’d have seen the effect it had. That’s what I’m talking about. When that plane flew over, every single fucker in Lowestoft stopped what they were doing and looked up at it. My fighters, the underclass—all of them.”
“Yes, but a two-seater plane … Come on, what are they going to do?”
“Nothing right now, but it’s what they could do that’s important. They’ve got one plane today, they could have two tomorrow. They could train pilots and have a whole goddamn fleet up in the air before we know it. Now they know we’re here they’ll be back. They could drop bombs on us and there’d be nothing we could do.”
“That’s not likely to happen, is it? Like I said, it’s probably just someone who got lucky.”
“I know that and you know that, McCoyne, but the hundreds of dumb bastards lining the streets of this town don’t.”
“So hunt them out. Try to get whoever it was on the team.”
For a moment he’s quiet. He leans back against the wall and runs his fingers through his hair, then massages his temples. I’m sure he’s already thought of that. He’s probably already sent his fighters out there hunting the plane and its pilot—and if and when he finds them, I know he’ll leave them with no choice but to work with him.
“Thing is,” he says, sounding marginally calmer again, “seeing people flying around affects what the people here think about me. They know I don’t have any planes, so they automatically assume those bastards up there are superior. This is eroding my authority and putting unnecessary strain on the control I’ve got here. I can’t let that happen, you understand?”
“Yes, but—”
He holds up his hand and stops me talking.
“There’s also the very real possibility that they might attack from the skies. What would I do then? Have people standing on rooftops chucking stones back at them if they fly low enough?”
“The chances of them attacking are remote—”
“How do you know that? Anyway, a chance is a chance. It gives them a tactical advantage, and we have to do something about it.”
“We?” I say stupidly. Hinchcliffe glares at me again, then starts pacing around the living room. Rufus scuttles out of the way as he moves toward him. Hinchcliffe spots the wrench I leave lying around for self-defense. He picks it up and starts swinging it, passing it from hand to hand and feeling its weight.
“Here’s what’s going to happen,” he announces. “I’m sending Llewellyn and a few others out at first light to find those bastards. Llewellyn thinks he’s worked out where they’re likely to have come from. He’ll find them and either bring them back to me or get rid of them. And you’re going with them.”
“Me? Why?”
“Don’t pretend you don’t fucking know. Same reason I always send you. You’re so fucking insignificant that no one gives you a second glance. You can assess the situation better than most, and if you can’t assess it, you can at least spy on the fuckers and tell me what’s going on.”
“But I’m sick.”
“So? I’m not asking you to run a fucking marathon.”
I try to think of a valid reason that’ll make him change his mind, but I can’t.
“Okay,” I say, desperate to pacify him but already trying to think of ways to get away from this mess once and for all. I’m relieved when he starts walking back toward the door. Rufus hesitates, then follows in his footsteps, unsure what to do next. Clumsy bastard knocks another stack of books over, then walks into Hinchcliffe when he stops suddenly.
“Sorry, Hinchcliffe,” he mumbles pathetically, cowering back. Hinchcliffe ignores him and slowly turns back around to face me.
“Where were you, Danny?”
“What?”
“When the plane flew over, where were you? You still haven’t told me.”
“I don’t know when that was. Like I said, I’m sick. I went for a walk to try to clear my head, and when I got back I went to see your doctor.”
“Does it affect your hearing?”
“What?”
“This ‘sickness’ of yours, makes you deaf, does it?”
“No.”
“So how come you didn’t hear anything? They were circling Lowestoft for almost an hour, maybe even longer. How could you not have heard it?”
“I don’t know. How am I supposed to answer that? I’ve had things on my mind. Like I said, I could have been asleep or down by the beach…”
“It’s all a bit convenient, isn’t it?”
“Is it?”
He stares at me, unblinking. Does he know more than he’s letting on? My pulse is racing, but I hold his gaze. He finally breaks eye contact and looks away, and the relief is immense.
“No, probably not.”
“What, then? What are you saying?”
“You talk the talk, Danny, but do you really understand how important this might be?”
“Yes, you’ve just explained.”
“So you understand that it’s crucial for me to keep control of this place?”
“Yes.”
“So why weren’t you here?”
“You said to take some time off. You said you didn’t need me.”
“I thought you were smarter than that.”
“What?”
“I might have told you I didn’t have anything I needed you to do for a couple of days, but I didn’t say you could go away on a fucking vacation.”
“I didn’t go on vacation, I just—”
He holds up his hand (and my wrench) again to silence me. Arrogant bastard.