Desmond Skirrow - It Won't Get You Anywhere

CHAPTER ONE
THE streets are still filled with pushers, and the shop windows with dirty telephone numbers, but the Square Mile of Vice, London Wl, is now too square to be very vicious. The out-of-work waiters, called extra ducks by their working brothers, still stand under the No Waiting sign on the corner of Old Compton Street, waiting for banquet day. In the French pub you can still slop Pernod down your tie and listen to them remember Dylan Thomas, and all the old lags, will still touch you for a whisky and Guinness. The telephones are out of order, the basements are filled with purple hearts and the coppers are all younger. Frith, Dean and Greek still run into Shaftesbury Avenue or out of it, according to your desire, and the alleys in between are filled with little clubs. The square mile is still there. But the vice has moved west.
Soho, however, still has good food. Salt beef with a big Jewish grin, chicken cacciatora with a Neapolitan leer, Chinese curry and Pakistani chop suey. And good French cooking, like new francs, ten times the price.
Up the street past the shop that sells butchers' aprons for the girl who does everything, and round the corner where Albert Dimes was knifed, is Le Masquoyard. A man must be not only rich, but also powerful, to get through its shabby door and up its sagging stairs. Le Masquoyard serves meat, fruit, cheese, phallic ice-creams and nothing else at all. It is dim, small and spacious and the man who dines there knows it.
Outside, in the alley, stood Musgrave. The evening was hot and dark and he was bored almost to sleep. There was too little light from the Dean Street lamps to light his Evening Standard, and not enough darkness to hide him from the chalky little Irish molly in the other doorway. She was Patricia, Hostess No. 7 of the Gelbana Club and she had Musgrave pegged for a. timid John thomas with a hard-earned fifteen or twenty to blow on a couple of glasses of Quosh and a couple of hours' wishful thinking.
'O God,' said Musgrave to an empty bookshop. 'What's the belted bastard doing up there?'
And upstairs in the deep red restaurant, Lord Llewellyn was finishing the finest peppered steak in London. He looked at the girl who sat opposite and poured a little more of the right red wine. She pouted, for she had expected champagne. Lord Llewellyn squeezed her hand in his,
'Let's go,' he said.
'AH right,' she said.
'Good girl,' he said. And simply by desiring it, Lord Llewellyn got his bill. He scribbled on it and led his pink and white girl over the carpet and into the night. He looked neither right nor left though all the rich, powerful meat-eaters in the place tried to catch his eye. For Lord Llewellyn, heavy and handsome, emperor of Allelec and three hundred thousand loyal workers, was the biggest thing in the City of London and behaved accordingly.
Down in the warm, boring night, Musgrave brightened alittle. He watched them into the Bentley which had waited on the yellow line all the evening, and he strolled across the alley to his Heinkel. Following was better than propping up walls, even on a routine job like this.
Some routine, thought Musgrave. Like the rest of them, this one splits his twenty-four hours right down the middle. Between making money and making hay, he has no time for dabbling. And why the hell Greene, the toffiest-nosed bastard in Addison Road, was squandering public funds watching half the randy big wheels in British industry going round and round and up and down and in and out, thought Musgrave, God alone knows.
He twisted his bubble car down Dean Street and into Shaftesbury Avenue. On the way he coveted a leather overcoat in Cecil Gee's window and said, 'Bayswater. A brandy to a bitter lemon it's back to her place as usual. And that's him until noon tomorrow. Some routine,' he said.
The Heinkel was rattling along behind the Bentley like a tin can on a wedding car. Thank God for little Heinkels, thought Musgrave, the only way to keep up, with drivers the way they are, though Christ knows what we'll do when all these fast bloody underpasses are finished. Back to the old days, he supposed, and two men for every job, with a bloody office Hillman round every corner. 'Thank God for traffic planning and oneway Marples, too,' he said, as he shot under a 12 bus and came up inside the Bentley at the Haymarket lights. He glanced to the left. 'The noble ram is already at it,' he said. 'Pray silence for a right old fumble and it's all quiet to Queensway.'
And he rowed along on his gearlever, up Pall Mall, past the Palace and under the trees to Hyde Park Corner, then through the park the long way, to Bayswater.
But Musgrave was not so good as he thought he was. Since it Was a routine job he used his driving mirror only for driving, not, as he should have done, to observe the big, black, bent Ford, two cars behind, also taking the long green way to Queensway.
After Musgrave had griped down Dean Street, a man came out of the Gelbana Club, goosed Pat the hostess and slid into a black Ford that was parked among the ashbins. He was short, strong and dandy, and he smelled of gent's toiletries. His black leather jacket was riveted in intricate copper patterns and his hair gleamed like a Moscovy duck's behind. He was in no particular hurry since he knew where the Bentley was heading and therefore where the Heinkel was heading, too. But he roared across Old Compton Street out into Shaftesbury Avenue because ■that was the way he liked to drive.
He took his place unobtrusively behind Musgrave, however, and drove quietly, because that was the way he earned his living. And the three cars drove through the park, past the trees and the barracks and the loveliest lake in London. At the north gate, the Ford was held on the red but a fancy piece of weaving closed him up again by the time they all turned right down Queensway.
Halfway down to Whiteley's, the Bentley disappeared left. Musgrave widened the gap a little, so that by the time he was passing the camped-up house in Cockburn Square, he could see Lord Llewellyn and his girl buzzing the lift. He carried on round the one-way circuit to park by the pub as usual. It was near closing time, but the hot weather had brought a few tables out onto the wide pavement from which he could see the girl's flat through a gap in the trees.
If it's not a short time, thought Musgrave, it's all night. That's basic thinking, so I'll give him one large Scotch, maybe two. If he's not out, I'll phone in and knock off. He started wanting his drink. He left the key in the ignition since he would be sitting near, on the pavement, and he pushed the door open in front of him. In the Heinkel, the steering wheel swings out with the door. Musgrave started to heave himself out of the front of his bubble.
He saw the big, black Ford coming round the square the wrong way from the Queensway entrance. Christ, he thought, a drunk. No entry, no lights. And a clapped-out old drag that'll get him done good.
As he watched it, half in and half out of the Heinkel, the Ford swerved in to the empty stretch of kerb in front of him, mounted the pavement and swerved out again.
Christ, thought Musgrave, what a stupid way to die.
And the heavy, projecting over-rider of the Ford, as delicately aimed as a billiard cue, neatly closed the open front door of the Heinkel upon Musgrave's waiting body. And the black car slid out of Cockburn Square into the soft centre of Bayswater. In Hereford Road its lights blinked on and it cut back into the Bayswater Road and lost itself in the traffic.
Lord Llewellyn, swirling a little brandy in his glass, looked down from the big, first-floor window at the crowd on the pavement.
'Some sort of brawl, my dear,' he said. T wish that public house was somewhere else. Anyway, I'll pull the curtains, shall I? We don't want to share you, you know.'
,'AU right,' said his girl, and continued to take her clothes off.
I knew nothing about Musgrave at the time, of course, or about Lord Llewellyn, except that his face looked at me from almost every newspaper I picked up. All I knew then was what I still know now. They think they can pick you up by the hair whenever they want to, and play you like a yo-yo. I was dozing at my desk, in fact, and the telephone rang. So I picked it up and answered it.
'Brock?' it said.
'What?' I said.
'Can you lunch?' it said.
'Who is that?' I said.
'Stop it,' it said.
'Twelve (orty-five in the Trait,' I said.
They can play you like a bloody yo-yo. Once a year or so, they pick me up by the hair and bounce me around the walls, but between times, I work in advertising agencies. They are mostly in Mayfair, a nicer place to work than Croydon or Ilford, right in the civilised furry bowler and velvet collar country, though some agencies have delusions of grandeur and rent buildings near Fleet Street.' I like working in advertising agencies. They are great carpeted palaces of little problems and big solutions, filled with loose minds in tight dresses. They bounce you around the walls too, of course, but they do it gently and pay for their fun.
So I switched off the Test Match on my office telly, patted my secretary, and walked up Jermyn Street to Piccadilly. They were waiting on the cool tiles of the Tratt bar with two large whiskies.
'Campari tonic,' I said.
'Christ,' said Muir.
'I'm an advertising man,' I said. 'And I drink like one.'
'Jesus,' said Greene.
'You're a bit blotchy,' said Muir.
'Toothache pills,' I said. The Campari came and I paid for it myself.
'Look,' said Muir. 'You've no call to behave like a bloody Barnado boy. He never quibbles over expenses, you know.'
Greene nodded and Alvaro brought the menu. And downstairs after eating, Greene delivered his message.
'He wants to see you,' he said. 'God knows what He has in His mind that my lads can't do. But you'll be doing me a service by coming to Addison Road for a drink tonight.'
'He was fairly adamant,' said Muir. 'We knew you wouldn't : bothered, but He was adamant.'
"Get stuffed,' I said.
We drank the rest of the dry white wine in silence. I wished it was sweeter. Greene ordered three brandies. 'Tell him to get stuffed too,' I said. 'Righto,' said Greene.
'Yes,' said Muir. 'But it's only fair to tell you that He asked me for your folder before we left.'
'We won't be able to stop Him,' said Greene. 'See you tonight, Brock, old boy,' said Muir. 'Seven sharp, He said,' said Greene.
So I got back to the agency in timefortheschoolsprogramme. I learned how to listen to gramophone records. Then I speculated on the probable moral attitudes of the kind of woman who might be persuaded to give her dog tinned liver-and-bacon, and by five-thirty I was going round and Tound in a consumer-oriented event loop which was turning into an ever-decreasing spiral. Instead of disappearing, I invited a colleague across the road for a drink. I buy her drinks whenever I can for she is the whole advertising business in one fat package. A big solution to a little problem, a loose mind in a tight dress. She has a musical name and she drinks pink gin like a commodore.
More than two hours later, I paid off the taxi in Holland Park and walked the rest of the way as I was taught to do. I pushed open the front door in Addison Road and walked past Det.-Sgt. Pratt.
But Pratt had been replaced, and a newer, bigger, keener copper shoved the thick arm of the law across my throat. Muir or Greene should have told him. Judo, unless played with a woman, is about as metaphysical as nine-card brag, whatever Joe Robinson says. And as this new copper was a man, there was no ambivalence about the pulling and the pushing. I pushed. He was confident as well as keen, and he flipped as though he was greased. He had also composed his mind to tell me all about it and was still about to speak when he hit the wall. I grabbed his throat and dangled him against the panelling. His mouth was wide open and grinning, I think, but nothing came out, not even a snicker. So I punched him low and let him slide, and his supper came out.
'I'm Brock,' I said. T didn't want to come here, and I won't want to come next time either.'
A door opened upstairs. 'Come on up,' it said. 'You're no later than you should be. And ask the Sergeant to draw a brandy from supply. Greene will sign the chit.'
I went up to see him. I had seen him before, of course, but not often.and not for more than a year. He had neither dimmed nor withered, however. He had not changed at all, still the same fat and rose-red swine, half as old as time.
I first met him in a Brighton pub just after the war. I was using it to get rid of my gratuity and he was using it to wrap up the operation that would have won the war without the Americans. I got into a bit of a brawl one night, lost my temper and caused a good deal of trouble. After that we drank a lot together, or at least I drank a lot in his company. We talked a lot too, and in the tough queer bars under the arches on the beach he started playing me like a game. I had my theory of perverse action at the time, just a matter of lowering your head and charging in, instantly and at the unlikeliest spot. He was interested. There were still a few razors about in those days, and a lot of heavy dealers resting after their war work in London and Liverpool, so Brighton was filled with money and drink. The O.K. Brighton drink was then brandy-and-benedictine and there was unlimited trouble lying around to be picked up. He had a great way of picking it up, handing it to me so that he could observe perverse action in action, and disappearing.
After a week of it, I was banned from every pub and club in Brighton and Hove, 'Bucket of Blood' and all. He paid my damages, bought me a Dover sole and told me he was going to take a chance on me and sign me up. I had a lot to learn, he said, and it was a pity that I had wasted the war messing about in boats instead of getting some worthwhile experience. But he had a feeling about me, he said. And I told him to get stuffed.
But he meant it. I think he always means everything, though he never sounds as though he does. Three days after I got back to London. to look for a comfortable advertising job he sent Greene and Muir with enough chat and enough money to lead me up Kensington Gardens to the big house with the white ensign and the soldiers at the gate. And before I came out three months later I realised how right he was. I had a lot to learn when I met him. Stiff fingers and steel soles, how to burn down the Albert Hall with one damp safety match, how to take pictures in a blacked-out room with nothing but a Ronson Vara-flame, how to drink vodka without black pepper and how to match a Jaguar in a Hillman Minx. I learned about Redland and Yellowland, about anomalies, perversions and benzedrine, about the kiss of life; the kiss of death and the kiss of a Wren masseuse called Jo.
And while I was young and keen and stupid, the fat man gave me my first job. It was completely unnecessary, highly illegal and minutely recorded in words and pictures. And now, if he presses the button marked Brock, I will be instantly transported in a plain wrapper to Germany to be electrocuted, then brought back here to be hung. They will then ship me across the Channel to be decapitated, and afterwards I will probably spend the rest of my life in the black hole of Madrid.
On that first foolish job, I broke more laws on his behalf than I even knew existed, and all he said to. me was, let that be a lesson to me. So I pushed his odious poodle out of its chair and sat down.
One of the nasty continuing things about- him is that he only drinks Calvados and offers nothing else. He sipped and waved his fat hand at the bottle beside him. I walked across the room and poured an honest whisky from the bottle in the cupboard. He sighed, for he keeps it for the Minister. I stood in the corner looking at a print of the Battle of Balaclava. Greene found it in an old Illustrated London News and Muir had it framed for the fat man.
T want you for a week or so,' he said.
'You can't have me,' I said. 'You took my passport away last year.'
'It's a domestic matter,' he said.
'Oh yes,' I said. 'No. I am now a permanent advertising man. I have the knack of thinking weak and sounding strong. And you have had your money's worth out of me.'
'You said that last time,' he said. 'Weak thinking and repetitive.'
'Like all good advertising,' I said.
He poured more Calvados and set the squat, reeking bottle down in a new place, on a fat, striped folder. It looked like anyone's, but it was, of course, mine.
'I'm going to go on getting my money's worth, Brock,' he said, 'so long as I need you. And this time I need you for a week or two.'
He must have been to the pictures, for I think he was about to tell me just what it was that was bigger than both of us. But Greene came in with a signal. He took it, read it and grunted.
'Pass it to Ballycuddy,' he said, 'and don't disturb me again.'
Ballycuddy, I remembered, was his code name for Paris. And .1 remembered why. His wartime man there was Fiddler O'Dwyer from the Emerald Isle, a mad mick who refused to learn French. He spent half the war talking Gaelic gibberish to German soldiers, and most of the other half learning German in Auschwitz in case he got out before he died.
The fat man sipped his drink and looked at me.
'All right,' I said. 'I can take a week, I think.'
He held out his fat hand and I shook it. Then he offered me another Calvados and I poured another whisky. We satin silence while the poodle wheezed. To be perfectly honest, all things being equal, I have always enjoyed sitting in this room. Apart from me, my striped folder and possibly his poodle, there is nothing in it later than 1910, nothing at all to betray the fact that George the Fifth has been crowned and buried. In that rosy room, World War I is yet to come, the Kaiser is still playing at
Cowes with randy old Edward and Melba is still inventing toast and ice-cream in Covent Garden.
The room is filled with gleaming wood and bulging velvet, cosy little, vulgar little Victorian chairs, tables almost everywhere, loaded with enough sequined pincushions, cowrie shells, tiny wooden cabinets, glass eggs, Staffordshire whims and fancy painted biscuit tins to sink the Portobello Road. The walls are flocked with fleur-de-lis and the shelves are stocked with Dickens.
In this world of cold and shifting values it is the safest room I know, and sitting in it is as dangerous as looking into his bright blue eyes. For then I am a little boy again, sitting in grandfather's parlour on mummy's big plush lap, in the cosy life where a refusal may offend. So I pulled myself together.
'It's not at all much,' he said.
'It never is,' I said.
'Just a few accidents,' he said. 'All fatal. Two of Muir's lads. And now one of Greene's boys last night. Nothing important, all detail men. All working to the book. But I don't know.'
'Were they all working to the same book?' I said.
'Oh yes, I think so,' he said. 'Looks that way. All on the road, mind you, but all different. One, a straight German left-hand-right-hand holiday pile-up. Two, a blown front tyre or something outside Milan. And now a hit-and-run in Bayswater.'
'And that was last night,' I said. 'Who was it and what was he doing?'
'You won't know him,'he said. 'Name of Musgrave, ex-copper, good sergeant. Greene's been catching up on where have all the big boys gone. Tycoons and such. Musgrave was watching Llewellyn. You know, Allelec.'
'Anything there?' I said.
T don't think so; no,' he said. 'Llewellyn's very big now, of course, and we just have to keep his profile up to date for the computer boys. A bit of a satyr nowadays, on the toot more than most. But nothing, Musgrave said, outside work and women.'
'What about the German one?' I said.
He looked up at the ceiling and resettled his large bottom in his chair.
'On tourist-checking for Muir,' he said. 'A rest cure for him, really, after a spell in Berlin. Just a pair of eyes in the Frankfurt district. Just a perfectly straight pile-up. Some bloody tripper forgot he wasn't in Bromley High Street and came out of a bend left-handed into a lorry. Five cars, seven dead. Muir's man in the middle. They don't know what he was doing or even if he was doing anything. Just a clear blue sky cock-up, they say. A pity, but there it is. I hate cars.'
He meant, of course, when other people drive them and kill his lads. He has a Pontiac Parisienne himself, the one with the
6-7 American engine, which he drives like a bumper-car on August Monday.
'The trouble is,' he said, 'the man in Milan died just as naturally. Hot sun and high speed. A tyre blew, they think, and he dived off the road like a test pilot.'
'So what's the connection?' I said.
'Oh, no connection,' he said. 'It's not even to be counted coincidence nowadays I suppose. They were all on routine work, nothing more. None of them on danger-rate. They all worked for me though, and they were all known, I expect. That's all. I want you to look into this last one to put my mind at rest. Pour another drink.'
'Why me?' I said.
'Well,' he said, 'if some kind of nut is.knocking off my lads just because they work for me, I'll need to know, won't I? If the lads are just getting careless, I want to know that too. They can find better ways to die, you know.'
'Yes,' I said. T know.'
'And if it is some kind of nut,' he said, 'he'll know all my regulars, won't he?'
'So you sent for me,' I said.
'Yes,' he said. 'He might not know you.'
'You trained me,' I said. 'But not for straight police-work. Why don't you talk to the coppers?'
'No,' he said. T have this feeling.'
That's why he is there, of course. And when he has feelings, so do 1.1 have five experiences of his intuition which I still feel in wet weather.
'All right,' I said. 'I'll look into Llewellyn.'
'That won't get you anywhere,' he said.
'Where the hell else can I start?' I said. 'That's where Musgrave was when he died.'
'Have it your own way,' he said. 'Anything you want, see Greene.'
'What about cover?' I said.
'Cover?' he said. 'You've been watching the telly again. What d'you want cover for? You're an advertising man on holiday.'
He hoisted himself out of his chair and opened a signed picture of Lily Langtry. In the safe behind her he found an envelope and gave it to me.
'Some cash,' he said. 'Right, that's done. Leaves time for a round of scrabble, eh?'
'No,' I said. 'I'll go and see Greene.'
He looked disappointed. A tear almost formed in his bright blue eye. I have to work for him but I don't have to play with him. He always wins.
Greene was up in his room, delicately watering his rubber plant. I asked him for Musgrave's action sheet.
'Why?' he said.
'I'm going to carry on where he left off,' I said. 'Looking at Llewellyn.'
'That won't get you anywhere,' he said. He thinks just like his boss, but he feels less.
'Where the hell else can I start?' I said, doing it all properly, in duplicate.
'Have it your own way,' he said, and handed me a thin folder.
Like most of Greene's immaculate records, it gave me only the details of what I already knew. Musgrave had been on the job for no other reason than that Llewellyn was big, and the record showed only work and women. The current woman's name was Lily Beck, though Llewellyn's list of minor hobbies read like the index of Spotlight. Llewellyn had been out of the country a few times, when Musgrave had checked him out to Muir's network, and apart from that, his only breaks from business and Lily were a few promotional tours into Wales and the Midlands with a man called Al Schneider. I knew a little about Schneider. He was one of the big American advertising fish who have been swimming into our little British pond. He was working hard, though. Llewellyn was turning out to be God's gift to the export drive, the productivity drive and the fat British housewife.
But I felt, with the fat man and Greene, that there was nothing that would get me anywhere. I still had to start somewhere though, and I remembered the fat man's feeling. There were a couple of points from which to follow Musgrave's footsteps. Lily Beck for one. And Al Schneider, since we were in the same business. I closed the folder and handed it back to Greene, who was now manicuring his cactus plant.
'Thanks, old boy,' he said. 'Did you know that Ceremantics rubincula is prone to a rather nasty kind of pneumonia?'
'No,'I said.
'It didn't get you anywhere, did it?' he said. 'That action sheet.'
'Yes,' I said. 'As far as Cockburn Square for a start.' 'Ha,' he said. 'You'll need more than a pretty face and a black belt there.'
So I went home, melted a frozen steak and brewed a pot of Nescafe. Then I went to bed and let it all lie fallow for the night. Just before I went to sleep I heard, from the far-off King's Road, the scream of brakes and the crunch of steel. Another pile-up bang on the big black spot. I hoped it was just a member of the general .drunken public, and not another of the fat man's lads.
Next morning, I walked past the Palace to work. The Queen was home, the sun was shining and I got to the office earlier than usual, just after my boss and just before my secretary. So I milked three cups of coffee out of the vending machine to help me recall the conclusions I had reached about liver-and-bacon dogfood. I think I recalled most of them and I put them down on my personal paper, coloured lifemanship yellow for luck.
By the time I had finished it was ten-thirty and the upper levels of British business were beginning to move. So I looked through my book of friends and found a medium wheel in one of Llewellyn's Allelec companies who would know Schneider. He was in when I telephoned and I went through the routine. I was a little restless, I said. Nothing specific and certainly in no hurry to move. But I was beginning to feel pigeon-holed, I said, and could do with a little more scope. Did he know Schneider well, I said. There's a man. I knew a bit about his work, and it would be a breath of fresh air, I said, to work alongside a big wind for a change like Schneider, an innovator like Schneider. I reckoned I could really swing with a man like Schneider, I said.
My friend got the impression, I think, that I had either been fired or had resigned in a huff. He saw a little of Schneider, he said, and he would certainly speak about me. I asked him to do it now, though there was no real hurry of course, and he said he would and we must lunch very soon. I said we really must and replaced the receiver.
Then I called Lily Beck in Cockburn Square. I told her the truth. I worked, I said, for West One, the glossy men's glossy monthly, and would like to see her in connection with our November feature.
'We've seen some pictures of you which knocked us out,' I said. 'And we're hoping you will care to collaborate.'
'They must have been old ones,' she said. 'No, I'm sorry. I'm not available.'
'Jesus,' I said. 'That puts me in a spot, Miss Beck.'
'I'm sorry,' she said. She had a nice voice.
'Couldn't I just come round and talk to you?' I said. 'You might relent' I" felt like an insurance salesman and I must have sounded like one.
'Well, all right,' she said. "If it'll help you. It won't get you anywhere though. Twelve o'clock here. Don't be late or I'll be gone.'
I looked in my diary and found that I was overdue for a meeting. I sidled into the conference room and looked sincere While I learned what we were talking about. It was KattyKan, Chicken and Fish for Kittens of All Ages, now the way-out market leader. Adrian Burne-Smith, the group director, was confidently contemplating the day when he could report a one-hundred-per-cent market share. His eyes gleamed.
'And that will be where our real job starts,' said one of his immaculate zombies. 'That will be the day when we'll have to sell in earnest.'
They continued to fiddle around the problem for an hour until it was about time I thought of getting to Cockburn Square. So I prepared to leave the meeting.
'It all seems fairly simple,' I said.
'Ha,' said Burne-Smith, who knew that nothing was simple. 'Yes,' I said. 'It seems to me that when you get your product selling to everyone, there are only two ways to sell more.' 'Mmmm,' said Burne-Smith.
'You can make everyone use more of it,' I said. 'And in this particular case, probably kill them all off.'
'Yes,' said one of the zombies. T take his point. Without major product reformulation, increased per-capita consumption would possibly tend, over the long term, to reduce the total market.'
'Good tactics,' said Burne-Smith. 'Bad strategy though.' 'Rather,' I said. 'But there's another alternative. Find more consumers.'
'Great,' said Burne-Smith. His eyes gleamed again. Then he frowned. 'But where the hell will we find anything to eat catfood except cats?'
'And of course, wogs, ha-ha,' said a zombie. But Burne-Smith gave him the full executive eye and he realised that he had made no joke.
'Easy,' I said. 'More cats. Do we have figures on kittens drowned at birth?'
'No, I don't think we do,' said Burne-Smith. 'But I begin to follow.'
'Good,' I said. 'I've been remembering my schooldays. The rag-and-bone man would wait outside the playground and sell us goldfish for old cardigans. That must have done a bit for ants'-eggs. And what about the Battersea Dogs' Home? They have to eat.'
'Yes, yes, yes,' said Burne-Smith. T take your point. A Battersea Cats' Home.'
'In every principal conurbation,' said a zombie.
'Great,' said another zombie. 'And a "Don't Put Pussy Down The Well" campaign to stock them.'
'Great,' sang another zombie. 'Don't put pussy down the well, If you do you'll go to hell, Find it a home and buy it a dish, Of KattyKan, KattyKan, chicken-and-fish.'
'Great,' said Burne-Smith. 'We'll have to cost the operation out, of course, but d'you know, I think the RSPCA might play on this.'
'Wait a minute,' said a zombie. 'Distribution.'
'For Heaven's sake,' I said. 'Do a deal with Rice Popsicles. Kids are a pushover for kittens.'
'Of course,' said Burne-Smith. 'No problem. A self-liquidating offer. Or a national competition of course, with a prize for everyone.'
It looked as though I could get away.
'Right,' I said. 'The ideal set-up. So long as you can produce consumers cheaper than they can buy what they consume, your problems are solved forever.'
'Oh, we can do that all right,' said Burne-Smith. T must say, Brock, that all this is very sound thinking. Tremendously exciting, too.'
'Good,' I said. 'I'm afraid I have to dash.'
'Of course, old chap,' said Burne-Smith. 'Have a good lunch.'
All the zombies rose as I left the room. I went downstairs to my office. My secretary was watching the Test Match, but broke away long enough to indicate a telephone message on one of my special pink forms. It was from Allelec House. Al Schneider could see me at four, if I was free.
'You're not getting the wanderlust again?' she said. When I get bored and move to another advertising job, she usually comes with me. But she hates the effort. 'Please,' she said. 'Not another set of new faces to learn to love.'
'They're all the same really,' I said. 'But no, darling, I'm not getting restless. I fit this place like a well-worn boot. And so do you.'
'Charming,' she said, and got back to her cricket.
I caught a taxi off its guard in Jermyn Street and I was buzzing Lily Beck's doorbell only four minutes after noon; It took her another four minutes to open the door, but when she did it was worth it.?'Lily was gorgeous enough and pneumatic enough to make me wish I really was doing a feature for a meat-magazine.
'I'm John Brock,' I said. 'We talked on the telephone.'
'Yes, and you're late,' she said. 'But you'd better come in.' She led me into her parlour. It was very flash and extremely comfortable, white and gold, painted wood, deep leather and a load of glittering glass.
'This is a beautiful room,' I said.
'Do you like it?' she said. 'It makes me feel like Ginger Rogers. You'd better have a drink.' And posing like a fine romance beside a strong table loaded with everything in the world, she poured a whisky for me and another large vodka for herself. She was as white and gold as her parlour and she glittered like her glass. But she looked bored and a little drunk. I started to feel like Fred Astaire.
'Let's face the music and dance,' I said.
'Don't be so bloody silly,'she said. So we discussed my project. After all, I really do write for the magazine sometimes, and after seeing her, a feature was fast forming in my mind. She poured us another drink but it made her no more interested in my business.
'Of course, we couldn't pay much,' I said. 'Nothing like you're worth.'
'It's not that,' she said. 'It's not the money. I'm just not available now.'
'We could wait,' I said.
'For Christ's sake,' she said. T told you. I'm not available. Permanent.' 'Oh,' I said.
She poured another drink. One more vodka, I reckoned, and she would be dancing the droshky on the ceiling. She stopped looking bored and started looking sad. I sat back and looked sympathetic. You never know.
T used to be available,' she said. She looked around her gleaming parlour. T used to work as much as I could. But, you know, I suppose I'm lucky.'
'I'm sorry,' I said. 'I mean, I'm glad. When I saw this place I thought it would be the money.'
'No,' she said sadly. 'It's not the money.'
'Well why not have a bash?' I said. 'Be like the old days. One easy session. I see you in the glossiest place in London. A restaurant. Say Le Masquoyard. You know, the dishiest dish in the furriest furs with the bloodiest steak in the world. And the richest man to boot.'
'Only furs?' she said. 'And boots?'
She giggled. She looked as though-she were listening to the distant music of m'oujiks and the pitter-patter of balalaikas in the cold Siberian snow.
'Well,' I said. 'That's howl see you.'
She giggled again.
'That's where I did see you,' I said.
'Where?' she said.
'Le Masquoyard,' I said. 'I saw you there the other night. With old whatsisname, Lord Llewellyn.' 'Can I trust you?' she said.
'Of course you can, Miss Beck,' I said, smiling my smile. 'In that case,' she said, 'call me Lily and pour us another drink.'
I poured two more big ones. 'Would he play?' I said.
'Oh yes,' she said. 'At the drop of a hat. One of those kinky ones that come with spinning wheels.'
'No,' I said. T mean would he co-operate in this feature?'
'Jesus Christ, no,' she s.aid.- 'He says he's shy. I think he's just mean.'
'Surely not,' I said. 'He's got more millions than I've got cigarettes.'
'Have one of these,' she said. 'Turkish on the left.' She sipped another dainty snort and looked around her. 'No, you're right, I'm not being fair to the old boy.'
She pouted gorgeously, and clutched her glass to her cleavage. She had almost more cleavage than she had bust. 'AH the same,' she said, 'I wish he'd take me out more often. Look at me.' She got up and twirled above me like Nijinsky. Then she fell deep into the sofa where I was sitting, close enough for comfort. 'Do you think he's ashamed to be seen with me?'
'Not unless he's a raving queer,' I said.
'You're sweet,' she said. 'No, he's not a queer. It must be me.' 'You're not queer,' I said. T hope.'
'No, silly,' she said. 'I'm just fed up with being cooped up here.'
'Cooped up?' I said.
She started getting' cross. 'Yes,' she said. 'Cooped up in this flat, or over in bloody Milan or in bloody Germany. My father used to hate the Germans.'
She sat beside me glaring at her glass.
'Or up the bloody Rhondda,' she said.
'How did you like Milan, Lily?' I said.
'How the hell would I know?'she said. T was there stuck on my tod in this bloody villa for a week. Then I got shot off to Germany to paint my toenails there for another bloody week.*
She was so close and so angry, and she was breathing so hard that I was feeling a bit odd. 'With Llewellyn?' I said.
'What's that got to do with you?' she said. 'You mind your manners or I'll sling you out.' She dropped her glass and put my arm around her large soft shoulder. 'Some holiday,' she said, ready to cry.
'When was that, love?' I said.
'Last September,' she said. 'I wanted to go to Majorca.'
So we talked about.Majorca and the Costa Brava and Jersey, all the lovely holiday places. And we had another drink and she calmed down. I must have sympathised very sincerely, for she became keen on the photographs I was unable to stop visualising, and she got her furs out. We rehearsed all sorts of poses, decided on the best and spoiled a magnificent mink. And when I left I was fuzzy from midday drinking. So I walked around Whiteley's food halls and found the telephones. I telephoned Greene.
'Yes,' he said.
'It's me,' I said.
'You're not scrambled,' he said. 'No,' I said. 'I'm stoned.'
'Get off the line,' he said. And he replaced the receiver.
So there I was, in the middle of a summer afternoon, left with the afterglow of Llewellyn's Lily, as white and as tight as the first snow on Juniper Hill. I did what any other man would do. I sauntered along Westbourne Grove and sat in a news theatre until it was time to see Schneider. And I was in luck. Sylvester was jumping. The Road Runner was rolling. And Laurel had to drink his way out of a fifty-gallon water butt.
Allied Electrical Industries, called Allelec, was housed near the river. The taxi skidded past the Houses of Parliament and down towards the Tate. Then it'turned right into an open space in the centre of which;was.'either a piece of priceless modern sculpture or a scaled-up contraceptive device. Anyway, it was all stainless steel and incredible holes, and behind it, Allelec House soared, like Lott's Bricks, to the sky.
It was a little sinister inside, like all the big new centres of all the big new webs. There were gold-painted lifts, winking lights and almost no people. The dust-extraction system whined like a. jet plane so that it was a shock to look out of the windows and still be on the ground. The most fragile girl in the world was waiting for me behind a desk like a Swiss battleship.
When I asked for Schneider she opened her heart to me, but I already knew Schneider was important. She talked into a box and took me to the express lift. She reluctantly left me in the care of a very big, very brawny lift captain.
T hate express lifts,' I said.
'They're safe enough, sir,' he said, with a thick, slow, Welsh accent.
'Maybe,' I said. 'But they're too bloody American.'
The lift captain kept his thick, Welsh silence and I shot, driverless, up to the fourteenth floor. I turned right to meet Schneider's secretary. She was dressed in top floor style, in soft black wool, bright black hair, scented skin and long legs. She led me into a set of quiet offices and sat me down for a moment while she pressed a button. Then she dealt me into Schneider's presence like a hand of aces.
He approached me briskly across the width of his big bare room.
'High,' he said. 'You are John. Right? John Brock.'
As he crossed his little acre of carpet, I had time to look at him. He was almost my age. I was bigger but he was richer and he looked it. A buttoned-down Brooke Brother with the sloping shoulders. I bet myself that the pocket built into his groin held a gold-plated Zippo. I took a bent cigarette from my breast pocket.
'Here,' he said, and from the pocket built into his groin he flipped a gold-plated Zippo.
'High,' he said. T am Al. Al Schneider.'
This I knew. He was an eagle from the eyries of Madison Avenue, USA. In his time, I knew, he had emasculated canned beer by rounding the corners of the label to give it woman-appeal. Then, to redress the balance, he had launched the first range of All-American male perfumes, Moose-Call, Waterfront and Ballgame de Luxe. From his trouble-shooting penthouse above Central Park, he had upped the WannaRead index of all Intercom advertisements by a round 24-75 per cent. Joking apart, he was a very sharp advertising cookie, and I wanted to watch which way he crumbled. 'Good afternoon,' I said.
'It's great, real great to meet you at last, John,' he said, and he tried to break all the bones in my fashionable limp handshake. 'Your friend spoke and I asked around. What I heard was good, real good, and we should have met before. It would be great if we can work out some scheme to pipe you aboard.'
'Real great,' I said.
'Yes, surely,' he said. 'There's just one thing, though, before we squat and pow. What makes, John? What makes you eager to come aboard? This I want to know.'
'It's very simple,' I said. 'It's you. Or rather, your reputation.'
'Yep,' he said. 'This is what your friend said, and it's what sold me of course. It's not often, for Chrissake, a goddam limey wants to work for a yankee bum. Not in this business anyway.'
So we got to talking very sincerely about advertising. And I •found, to my surprise, many good reasons why I could have enjoyed working for him, if I had been looking for a job. I also discovered that I am a lot more involved in the business than I think I am. Morals apart, and whether or not it happens in Russia, the persuasion business is as intricate and as absorbing as Ximenes. It is, at least, for a man like me who has met a lot of people and decided to take them and leave them.
But Schneider was different, one of the dedicated ones, the big born manipulators. I enjoyed trying to reach people and possibly teach them what to eat between meals. He had spent all his all-American life at the source and fountain of communication, learning the pattern of people and figuring ways to move them. He was a slice of Billy Graham, a helping of Doctor Gallup, and a sprinkling of Cassandra, all done up in a whiz-kid-shaped package tied with a crew-cut bow.
It soon became evident, however, that we were merely going through some motions. There was no job forme. He wanted me aboard all right, but only for a visit in case, and he was pulling, up the gangplank before my very eyes. He had nothing to say about his work in Allelec, and when I tried asking him about his personal operation for Llewellyn, he wrapped up the interview with real trans-Atlantic hustle.
As he was slapping me out of my chair, though, his desk-box buzzed and a special red light winked on. He punched the button and spoke very respectfully.
'It is now five forty-six, Mr Schneider,' said the box in a gentle female voice. 'And Lord Llewellyn is wondering why you have not arrived for your five forty-five appointment. He is concerned that you may be detained.'
'No, no, no, honey,' said Schneider. 'I'm on my way as of now.' The light went out and Schneider headed for the door.
'When you got to go, you got to go, Brock,' he said over his shoulder. 'Keep in touch, boy. Angie will see you out.'
He disappeared fast, pulling a comb from his pocket as he went.
'I'll be up top for a while, Angie,' he shouted from the corridor. 'Don't wait, honey.'
In the scented outer office, Angie smiled. 'Well,' I said. 'He's gone again.'
'Yes,' she said. 'He'll give me hell tomorrow. I was to buzz him at five forty-two. He likes three minutes to get upstairs.'
'Where's upstairs?' I said. T thought this was the top floor.'
'It is really,' she said. 'There's just Lord Llewellyn's personal suite above this.'
'There were only fourteen lights in the lift,' I said.
'He has his own,' she said. 'It's just a red leather door down in the hall.'
'Big deal,' I said.
'It certainly is,' she said. T saw inside it once. Red leather walls too, and an armchair like a throne. And a big painting on the wall. Mr Schneider told me it's an Augustus John.'
'Well, I never,' I said.
'Yes,' she said. 'Look, Mr Brock, I know Mr Schneider will want to keep in touch. Where can I reach you?'
T doubt it,' I said, but I gave her my number. She opened a big black book and entered it. I opened my little one and jotted down her extension number from the telephone on her desk. She smiled a little, I thought. She was very pretty when she smiled.
'What's that for?' she said.
'So that I can reach you,' I said.
'That won't get you anywhere,' she said.
'That's what everyone keeps telling me,' I said, 'and I'm beginning to believe it. I've certainly not got anywhere today. But I was hoping it might get you somewhere, in fact.'
'Like where?' she said.
'Oh, I don't know,' I said. 'What about a little schmaltzy restaurant down the King's Road? Or if the weather holds out, maybe further up the river in the scampi belt. Or the wrestling over in Hackney Baths. Or down in Annie's Room, if you don't like music'
'That's enough,' she said. T think I'd choose the wrestling.' I opened my mouth to speak through a smooth, smug smile. 'If I chose anything,' she said. And she closed her book. 'Well,' I said. 'I'd better be off.' 'Yes,' she said. Til see you to the lift.' 'No need,' I said. T can remember the way.' 'It's regulations, Mr Brock,' she said.
'You can trust me, Angie,' I said. 'Please trust me.' 'Miss Thomas,' she said. But she smiled, and we walked along the corridor. 'Welsh?' I said.
'No,' she said. 'I think I got the job under false pretences.'
'You probably did,' I said. 'It's sospan fach everywhere. Augustus John in the elevator and a liftman as big as Cader Idris.'
She shivered a little. 'He gives me nightmares,' she said, and held out her hand. It was cool and firm and I remembered just in time to correct my limp handshake. She smiled again and I felt quite happy. 'Goodbye, Mr Brock,' she said.
'Goodbye, Miss Thomas,' I said. T will telephone you.'
The lift doors closed before she replied, if she did, and I shot down to river level. Luckily the lift was a big one, so when it hit the bottom I was able to flatten myself beside the door and give my impression of an empty lift. So long as no one was waiting and Taffy was not expecting me, I was going to go right up again.
These driverless lifts are very slow thinkers, but finally the doors decided to close again. And back up on the empty fourteenth floor I walked away from Schneider's room past all the closed doors with neither names nor numbers. I was moving through the silence of top management. The new managers do not rant aloud like their fathers, and the tweedy lovelies who type their letters on noiseless electric machines neither cry at the slap nor giggle at the tickle.
I turned a corner in the corridor and hit the dazzle of evening sunshine on the river. Battersea was laid out in a cinerama window like the titles for a Karel Reisz film. But the trees were green, the roofs were bright, the river was gold and smoke as white as heaven churned out of the four chimneys of the power station.
At the end of the corridor was a red leather door. Nothing kinky, I thought, about this Llewellyn, and I pushed it open onto a short flight of very carpeted stairs. There was pictures on the walls. I recognised a Ceri Richards and a Chapman, but I know what I like. On the half-landing ahead was a console table loaded with red roses and behind the foliage gleamed a large convex mirror. It showed me the other flight of stairs and abroad black back. I slid out of its line of sight in case it turned round.
So I stuck there for a few minutes, worrying. Then I heard the buzz of a buzzer. If you wait long enough, buzzers will always buzz. I crossed my fingers and it continued to buzz for a while until it was answered. Then I risked a look in the mirror. The back was gone. I took a deep breath, went up fast and looked again. The back was bent over a talk-box across the room so I slid around the nearest corner. There were only five doors in front of me and I wanted to get in the emptiest one quick.
I stood still for a second, listened hard and heard the noise I was listening for. The smug gurgle of a self-flushing water-closet came from the far end, so I ran the gauntlet of the doors and dived into the washroom. I left the door open to save the noise of clicking it and entered the nearest cubicle.
Every big organisation has toilet snoopers and from the few I have known I have observed the technique. Hang around the big men's gentlemen's at the right time and you will hear something to someone's disadvantage. The rules are simple. Choose the cubicle nearest the washroom door for this is the one least used. And leave the door slightly open. Men worth eavesdropping must feel alone, and you will be safe enough, for if your hide is threatened all you need do is to grunt and rustle paper. And anyway, the best times to eavesdrop are after long afternoon'meetings with drinks, when cubicles are rarely needed.
I had k longish wait, and there was nothing of interest in my chamber.' It was expensive, of course, but no more than functional. The narrow slice of washroom that I could watch was very lush, though. More leather, teak and black porcelain, and a sliver of another gloomy Chapman coalmine, I'm afraid. In the washroom I had hoped for something better. A fat meaty nude by the great Welsh painter Rubens, for instance, or ten-gallon black and white breasts by old Taffy Beardsley. I was about to risk a wider look when the door burst open. I cowered on my oval seat and stopped breathing.
Listening to all the zippings and ejaculations and little piddling noises you would expect, I waited hard for some chat.
'Aaah,' said a voice. 'I needed that.'
'Me too,' said another. 'Thank the Lord Schneider came. He'll be there all night, I reckon.'
'Yes,' said a third voice, or it may have been the first. 'He's got most of the action at the moment.'
.'He hasn't got it all, not by a long shot,' said one of them. 'My little lot'll have to sweat blood. There's not much time left, for God's sake. I'll be spending it down the bloody Bendricks with Sullivan, and that?s no joke.'
'That's the part I don't like.'
'I haven't heard you object yet.'
'No. He knows what he's at. I just don't like bloody Germans.'
'There aren't so many of them, man. Only a drop in the ocean.'
'Five thousand's no drop. And it depends where he switches them.'
There were three voices, I thought, all as strong and confident as they ought to be, in the top-management washroom of Allelec head office. And all as Welsh as they would be at the top of Llewellyn's payroll. By now they were talking through the rush of water and the scrubbing of hands.
'There's a lot of work for us all, mind you.'
'Yes, but all plain sailing. All the tricky stuff is done.'
T reckon he's been at it all his life, eh?'
One of them laughed. T can just see him,' he said, 'down there under Buggerall Hill, eating welshcakes and watering his old family tree.'
'Yes,' said another, 'with his mam and his da out in the cow-' shed pushing up productivity and pulling down costs.'
'No, never. He built them an electric milkmaster when he was three, man.'
Three plugholes gurgled.
'I'd still like to know how he's going to use these Jerries.' 'Gome on man,' said the loudest voice. 'You don't have to marry them- And we'll learn all about it after they have their meeting down at Castle Cork next Friday.'
Then the door slammed shut. I shifted position on my gleaming black pedestal and wondered what I had been hearing. Schneider had a lot of work coming up. There was a big date somewhere in less than two months. There were a lot of Germans going to be busy at the Bendricks, wherever that was, and there was a meeting happening atCastleCork whereverthatwas.
So I started to think about getting out into the sunshine again. I tried the door. The corridor was empty and the light was fading. A slice of yellow lamplight showed me which was Llewellyn's room and I slid past, flattened myself up to the corner, looked, listened and sighed. The black back was gone. I hoped he was observing regulations and seeing the three Welshmen off the premises. But I relaxed for action and slid along to the stairs. The mirror showed both flights empty.
I always feel a bit of a fool after taking precautions for nothing, so I stopped on the way down to choose a rosebud from the flower show on the fourteenth floor. It looked safe and familiar, and I strolled to the lift and pressed the button. But it was not the lift which winked its light on. It was a flash like the death of the sun, and it came with a bang like the end of the world.
When I came to, the image of the flash was still red and yellow behind my eyes, and the echo of the bang was still inside my head. But I sighed, for I was still breathing. Even though I was just an aching body slumped in a wooden chair, alone in the centre of a big grey floor.
Then I saw that time had elapsed. The evening sun was casting its last longest shadows on a wall. I looked painfully around, trying to focus my eyes. The wall in front of me was hung with keys, neat and numbered, and I passed on to a grey steel desk with some sort of push-button board. My slowly focusing eyes took in a gun rack and moved to a door. They swivelled back to the guns. But my head was too full of screaming steel wool to decide what a rack of shotguns and old-style Lanchesters was doing in Allelec House, SW1.1 decided I was somewhere else entirely.
My head continued to swivel like a praying mantis and took in two big, black-uniformed men. They were sitting against the wall by the door, watching me. One was smiling. He looked friendly and I tried to smile back.
'How did I get here?' I said. T was in Allelec House.'
'You still bloody well are, boyo,' said the friendly one. 'And if you don't say double-bloody-quick what you're bloody well up to, you'll find out a bit bloody harder.'
'No, no, no, Dai,' said his mate in a slow, sawdust voice. 'Say it gentle.'
He stood up and walked over to me. He was as big as a pit-prop, but ugly. He stood over me and folded his arms. He looked like Frankenstein's big brother on a shopping spree at Smithfield.
'Say who you are,' he said.
'Get stuffed,' I said. I was still lightheaded, for all my head fell like it was three times the size it should have been.
He unfolded his arms slowly, and closed a fist as big as his head. Another bomb exploded for me and I came to on the floor c lurching my belly. I still think he kicked me when I was down, but never mind, I've kicked him since. I climbed back onto my chair. At the time, it was the only place I knew.
'No,' he said. 'Not like that. Say it gentle. See?'
"My name is Brock,' I said, shaking the junkheap in my head. 'And I was here seeing Mr Schneider, until you Welsh bastards started throwing me around. Now get Schneider here on the double.'
'Gentle,' said Frankenstein again. I stayed conscious this time. I must have been getting my second wind. And I saw myself, as from above, take off from the chair like a falling star. The bastard had hit me again, I thought.
'There,' he said, when I had crawled back to my base. T know you came to see Schneider, don't I? Now say about where you been snooping and why.'
'Let me have him, Mr Williams,' said the friendly one.
'No, Dai, no,' said Mr Williams, very gently. 'You just sit by there and keep your bloody trap shut.'
He stood there, thick, silent and waiting. I remembered him then. Mr Williams was the liftman who gave Angie Thomas nightmares, and I could see why. Now he was giving me one. It was neither his size nor his prehistoric Tonypandy looks. It was his eyes. When he hit me. And now that he was about to hit me again, there was no flicker of interest in his eyes. No anger, no amusement, no satisfaction, no curiosity. Williams was a professional.
So was I, in an amateur sort of way, but I was still fuzzy. I could have used a snort of Olympic oxygen, but since there was none I tried to think adrenalin. It was better than nothing and I suddenly got cross with the situation. So I pressed down on the seat of my chair, to make a fulcrum, and kicked him hard and fancy. Both my feet connected with both his kneecaps, and as he came down I came up and chopped him. He went out like Shanklin in October.
Dai was already grunting himself out of his chair and there was not the time to do him fancy. I did a Mary Rand, feet first into his belly. I try to use my hands as little as possible on tear-aways. You never know where they have been.
All this took about four seconds to happen. After all, any good runner nowadays can cover forty yards in that time, and a tiger can move four times the weight in half the time. I get my returns, if I get them at all, not so much from the damage I do as from the speed with which I try to do it, to induce post-surgical shock and make it easier when they wake up. Dai was laid out in the corner, trying very hard to breathe. Soon he would start wondering what had happened. Williams was still blacked out, but I had only managed a ten-second chop, so he was about to open his eyes and start hurting.
The bit of action had cleared my head. I straightened my jacket and took a shotgun off the rack. It was loaded. And the rack unlocked. Some office, I thought. I looked at Williams lying like a mountain on the cold grey floor. He was beginning to stir. I pumped the shells out of the gun, hefted it by the barrel, poked Dai and kicked Williams.
'Mush,' I said. 'The mountain sheep are sweeter but commissionaires are fatter. So I therefore deem it meeter to carry off the latter.'
'Oh,' said Dai, in an addled mumble. He still had not decided where he was. 'The war song of Dinas Vawr.'
'You're darn tooting,' I said. 'Giddyup.'
I herded them out into the corridor and told them to take me to the lift. I was going to get back to the front hall, bash the pair of them just once more and go home.
But my sense of irresponsibility was playing up again, what the fat man calls perverse action.
'What the hell,' I said. 'Take me to your leader.'
'By God, I'll have you for this,' said Williams, who was finding it hard to walk.
'Say it gentle,' I said, tapping him hard with the butt of my gun. 'Get a move on. The fourteenth floor.'
We went all the way up once more. I poked them out and along the corridor. Angie's room was empty now, with just the tiny echo of her fragrance in the air. I patted my breast pocket to remind myself that I still had her number, and immediately wished I were patting hers. Then I poked my lads into Schneider's room. He was there all right, far across the carpet in a pool of Design Centre light, consulting a vast sheet of tiny figures. He looked up, dropped his slide rule and froze. I tapped Williams again, right on his big square head, to keep him nicely addled.
'Jesus Christ,' said Schneider.
T don't know if they're yours or not,' I said, 'but I've finished with them. Where shall I put them?' 'Huh?' said Schneider.
'It's my fault entirely,' I said. 'They hit me When I wasn't looking.'
'Williams,'said Schneider. 'It's Williams.'
'Poking around the place, he was.' said Williams. He sounded too coherent, so I slashed him again. Schneider winced.
'Now, now, Taffy,' I said. 'Say it gentle, or don't say it at all. Trying to get out of this bloody beehive, I was, isn't it?'
Schneider started to unfreeze and started to look angry.
'All right,' he said to my two swaying goons, 'get out. I'll deal with this.'
But Dai and Williams stood still. I poked them. 'Go on,' I said, 'do as you're told. And take this with you.' I threw the shotgun at them and they went, one limping, one weaving. Schneider waved me to a seat.
'What in hell's happening, eh?' he said. 'You got lost, you say? Not for two whole hours, man?'
'Oh, no,' I said. 'Nothing like that long. For most of the time your goons have been punching me up down in your basement.'
'They're not my goons,' said Schneider. 'They're Allelec security guards. Highly trained.'
'And well armed as night watchmen go,' I said.
'How did you get lost?' said Schneider.
'You should read the Architectural Review,'1 I said. 'What's wrong with modern design. Everywhere looks like everywhere else. Up looks like down. Let them beat up your architect.'
Schneider frowned. 'But Angie saw you out,' he said. 'She signed you out.' He was about to say more but stopped himself. I realised later that he was looking at the red rosebud I had picked out of bounds. Anyway, he made some sort of decision. 'Look boy,' he said, T can't see what's happened, but it's obviously some sort of misunderstanding, eh? They say Williams is a bit slow. He's a good man though and I'm sure he meant no harm. I can see, though, we owe you some sort of an apology.'
'More of an explanation would satisfy me more,' I said. 'Perhaps I can get it from your boss. This kind of strong-arm Stuff isn't part of his image.'
'Sure, sure, sure,' he said. 'An explanation too. I'm sure there is one. I'll square it away in the morning, first thing. Llewellyn's not here just now, or we could sort it all out pronto. And anyway, it looks like you gave them a fair going over already. You're a 'big boy all right, Brock. What you say, let's file it behind'a squeeze of the sauce bottle, eh, man?'-' Perhaps he got more American after sunset.
Td like to,' I said, 'but I'm going home.'
'Righty-right, fellow,' he said. 'You call the barn dance. But keep in touch, man, keep in touch.'
'Yes,' I said. 'Miss Thomas has my number.'
'Swell,' he said. 'Do you know, Brock, fellow, I think we're going to do business.'
He took me all the way down and walked me across the echoing silver floor into the empty yard. We seemed buddier by far than before. And I did not believe it.
Four aspirins and a very large whisky in the first pub I reached reamed most of the steel wool out of my head, but when I got home I still tended to see everything red with yellow edges. So I did what I am always trying to make myself do. I made my special hangover remedy. I poured a careful glass of brandy and floated a ring of lemon in it. I loaded the lemon with ground coffee until it was awash. And I sat still while I watched it sink.
When it came down to the crunch though, I did what I always do and threw the whole concoction down the drain. I slept it off instead, and woke in more sunshine, feeling fine at half-past nine when elevenses come best. So I peeled a tin of Del Monte and went to work on an egg.
My secretary was in my room, ready and smiling and very switched on, sitting in my visitor's armchair watching the test card and waiting for Old Trafford to start the day's play. She had gathered three letters and two telephone messages. I was to find some work for an advertising exhibition, I was to find some work for an advertising drunk and I was to pay my subscription to the Creative Circle, whose symbol is an empty hole. I was to telephone Mr Schneider urgently and Mr Greene at my convenience. I telephoned Greene.
He pretended he was my intimate friend from way back. Perhaps he thought my line was being tapped by Unilever, or my room had been bugged by Carreras. He told me that Uncle was up for the day, looking as fat as ever, and was hoping to see me. I said how glad I was, and that I would pop in as soon as possible, maybe for a drink before lunch. Then I telephoned Schneider and crossed my fingers. I was lucky. Angie answered. She sounded pretty.
'I promised I would telephone,' I said.
'Hold the line please, Mr Brock,' she said. 'Mr Schneider is expecting your call.'
'Hang on a minute, love,' I said. 'It's you I'm ringing.'
'Don't yelp,' she said. But she hung on.
'Can I see you tonight?' I said. 'A funny thing happened to me last night.'
'What happened?' she said. 'Your name's certainly been buzzing around here this morning.' There was a little silence. 'I can't manage tonight, I'm sorry.' And she sounded sorry too.
'Have a heart,' I said. 'I'm one big bruise from head to tail, and all from killing your dragon. Well, kicking him in the teeth at least. How about lunch?'
There was another silence. 'AH right,' she said. 'Somewhere near here.'
JHHHIi
'One o'clock,' I said. 'The pub on the embankment. With the flowerbaskets.'
'Right,' she said. Then she said quickly, T have Mr Brock for you Mr Schneider.'
'High, big daddy,' said Schneider. 'Look boy, that little matter we were discussing yesterday.'
'I can still feel it,' I said.
'Ha,' he said. 'No, not that. I reckon I'm about cleared away to pipe you aboard, boy.' He sounded impressed with himself. 'Somebody die during the night?' I said. 'Huh?' he said.
'There was no room for me yesterday,' I said. 'Oh,' he said. 'No, nothing like that. But an ad man with your muscles we always got a place for.' 'What about all that?' I said.
'In hand, boy,' he said. 'The wheel is still out rolling. But he's about due back. Then we'll see action. Come on over now, eh?' 'After lunch,' I said.
'Whatever you say, daddy,' said Schneider. 'Or you might work me over like you worked them goons, eh?' 'Never,' I said. And rang off.
I told my secretary, between overs, that I would be out for the rest of the day. Then I told her that as soon as I was clear of the building she was to let everyone know that I would be away for the rest of the week. Things were quiet anyway, because half of the brand managers in London were toasting their crumpets in Tossa del Mar. She said she would cope, and could she leave early, so I caught a taxi for Holland Park and walked up Addison Road into the house. The new copper said nothing at all, and I went straight up to Greene's room. He looked up from his crossword.
'Where's Muir?' I said.
'In his room, I think,' said Greene. 'How did you get on with the girl?'
'All right,' I said. T think. You never know till someone tells you.'
'There's always someone to do that,' said Greene..
Muir was in his room adding up his bank balance. He also keeps his cigarette lighter in a little felt bag. He looked up.
'Brock old man,' he said. 'Good to see you. I think Coutts' computer is fixed. What can I do for you?'
'Your two men,' I said. He looked hurt.
'Look, old boy,' he said. 'I've got more than two, you know. Two hundred and forty-four in fact. Or five.' He remembered a signal and looked at it. 'Two hundred and forty-two,' he said.
T mean the traffic accidents,' I said. 'Where did they happen? And when?'
'Oh,' he said. 'You mean the ones He's got a bee about.' 'Yes,' I said.
He went through all the drawers in his : nd all the drawers in his cabinet. Then he took a folce: : - rtr.eath his Hotting pad and opened it. 'Here we are." he aid. 'Casualties incurred up to and including 5th April, this year.'
He thumbed through what looked like a pa;;:":: - i telephone directory. 'Yes,' said Muir. 'Italy 514. fa:, -.-chargeable. Near Milan, 19th September last. Likewise Germany 229. Outside Frankfurt just eight days later.' He looked _r I.'s a scandal, Brock. lean quite see what's frazzling Him. I'm losing more men to the traffic than to the bloody opposition these days.'
'Where near Frankfurt?' I said.
'Oh,' he said, 'some little town called Dreichenburg, it says. Never heard of the place.' Then I went back to Greene.
'This Llewellyn you've been tagging so carefully,' I said. 'Where was he for the second half of Sepierr re:'?'
'Hold on, old boy,' said Greene. He carefully folded his crossword and placed his fountain pen at right angles to his ebony ruler. Then, in one elegant motion, he ? elled his chair and opened a drawer. He extracted a folder and, in another elegant motion, swivelled back as he opened it.
'September last?' he said. 'Let's see. Wefl, the randy old bastard was holed up for a week or so with his bird in Milan. Then for a bit of a change, by the look of it, he flew north and locked her up with him in a schloss.'
'In September?' I said.
'That's what you asked for, old man,' he said. 'First Milan, then Dreichenburg?' I said. 'Dead right, old boy,' he said. 'Is the fat man there?' I said.
'Yes,' he said. 'But don't let Him hear you. He's been slimming.'
I went down to the fat man's room. He was poised behind his desk like a pink elephant.
'I thought you were out at work,' he said.
'I was,' I said. 'I dropped in for a fact or two about Llewellyn.'
'That won't get you anywhere,' he said.
'It will,' I said. 'I've got your connection. Musgrave was clobbered off Llewellyn's tail.'
'I know that,' he said. T told you. That's where you started.'
'So were Muir's two last September,' I said, „
'Oh, yes,' he said.
'Yes,' I said. 'Llewellyn- was in Milan and in Dreichenburg at the right times. And whatever he was doing he was not, I am told, holed up with his woman, the way it comes so neatly out of Greene's filing system.'
He pressed the buzzer, once for Greene, twice for Muir, and suddenly they were there.
'What's this?' he said. They looked blank. I told them. Greene shrugged. Muir looked sick and waited for the fat man to speak.
'Just how many lads have you got in the field?' said the fat man.
'Two hundred and forty-two as of today,' said Muir.
T wonder how we're going to find out what they're doing,' said the fat man. Muir said nothing. Greene shrugged louder than before.
'It looked like straight routine information,' said Muir at last. 'And I passed it to Greene in the normal way.'
'Nothing's so bloody normal as that,' said Greene. 'Two accidents behind the same arse.'
'Three,' said Muir. 'You're forgetting your man Musgrave.'
'Stop it,' said the fat man. 'Sort it out in your own time. Bring me everything you have on Llewellyn. And make sure it's everything. That's all.'
They left. Greene, the senior man, and usually a glutton for protocol, stood aside this time- and ushered Muir carefully out of the room.
'Sit down,' said the fat man. 'Don't think too badly of young Muir. He's just like his father. And Greene will deal with him I'm afraid.'
I nearly sat on his poodle again. 'There's something else,' I said. 'I went to see Schneider yesterday, too.' 'Who's he?' said the fat man.
'Llewellyn's hidden persuader,' I said. And I told him what I had felt and what I had heard. Then Greene came back with one of his neat folders. He put it in the centre of the fat man's empty desk, looked at me and shrugged again.
'It'll all be here,' said the fat man. 'If there's one thing I can leave to Greene, it's documentation.'
'So long as he has the facts,' I said.
Greene looked at me.
'Get on with it then,' said the fat man.
Greene coughed, sorted his papers, shrugged again and began.
'Well,' he said, 'first comes what Llewellyn is not. Tudor Owen Glendower Llewellyn was not born in a coal-black collier's terrace in Ebbw Vale, and he did not grow up with seventeen starving sisters, singing the Messiah and scrabbling for coal in the slagheap behind the house. His father was not buried by wormeaten pitprops, nor did his mother sell her wedding ring to buy his books. AIL this is just popular British happytalk.'
In fact, according to Greene, Llewellyn was born in front of a blazing fire in the best bedroom of a prosperous seaside farmhouse halfway up Cardigan Bay, in the lush west of Wales where the farmers have lived like princes for a thousand years on good fat meat and thick yellow cream.
But most of the rest of the popular picture was true. He was certainly some kind of a prodigy. As he grew up, farms were just beginning to mechanise, and electricity was starting to flow. Machines and power excited him and he dived deep into the rapidly expanding electrical industry so that even by the beginning of the war he was too valuable to call up. Then his real talent emerged. It was for administration and he went on administering himself right up the ladder right through the war.
By 1945, he was balanced firmly on the top rung. He was then able to switch on all the connections he had been making in Whitehall and in industry, and suddenly manhandled the whole power business into a massive amalgamation he called Alleiec, that was very soon making and marketing all the electricals in the country.
This is where I started learning. So did the fat man, I think, though he tried not to show it. Llewellyn, according to Greene's facts, had a lot more power buttoned up than most people realised, and some of his bigger operations surprised me. Alleiec had designed, made and even installed every new power plant since Whitehall started fiddling with the National Grid in the fifties, and in fact, the new Power Generating Boards were very little less than straight Alleiec subsidiaries. This was also true of the railways, but there was no apparent concern, largely, it seemed, because Llewellyn was as big with the workers as he was with the planners.
And besides the curly Welsh hair on his chest, said Greene, there was his staggering generosity working for him. He paid high and also bonused his workers right up to the eyebrows. The unions worshipped him, and since the Alleiec payroll roughly equalled the floating vote, so did politicians of all colours.
Greene then went into detail that showed Llewellyn's Allelec to be the single most powerful force in British industry. It was all surprising, interesting and, as far as I could see, irrelevant. And so was the rest of the picture.
His personal fortune, here and abroad, was astronomical, which made it possible for me to understand his great Glamorganshire philanthropies, though I will never understand why anyone who didn't have to live there could want to rebuild Swansea.
The rest we knew. He was unmarried, and a virile woman-lover. He played almost as hard as he worked. The cost of his goodbye kisses, stretched end to end, would have built a Comet, but little Lily Beck was lasting a long time. He had picked her out of the model circuit and moved her into Cockburn Square and after a year she was still his major pastime.
He was the loudest Nationalist and the largest employer in the whole grimy land of Wales, and as such had always been good headline material. But since Schneider, he had been hitting the headlines like Elizabeth Taylor, and from every direction. I had to hand it to Schneider. He was a real operator. The press cuttings for the last twelve months showed a subtle, planned crescendo that was rapidly fixing Llewellyn as the noble voice of the common man. Big Brother leading us at the double into the better life, with insinkerators for everyone.
As I had been told, Llewellyn had got us nowhere. All we had was a big, Welsh supertycoon with a taste for celebrity and a single-minded hobby. Nothing to show that he would ever have the time or the inclination or the energy or the need to drive around Europe killing off the fat man's lads.
But nevertheless, three pairs of experienced eyes had been knocked off his tail. And I was still aching myself. The fat man looked at me. I looked at a picture on his wall. Under the old Chain Pier at Brighton, a man in a dinghy rowed a woman with an umbrella.
'There's something there,' he said. 'I'll give you that. But I don't know what.'
'You'd better give me back my gun,' I said, 'and let me look.'
'Not yet,' he said. He had confiscated my gun with my passport. For my own good, he said.
'Look,' I said. 'You asked me to see if Musgrave actually bought it, or got it for nothing. I've done that and I've bridged the gap between your office-boys. I got myself punched-up. And the word from Llewellyn's WC is hardly whatever's the Welsh for kosher.'
He nodded wisely and poured himself a Calvados. 'So give me my gun back,' I said, 'and tell me where the Bendricks is.'
He sipped his Calvados and patted his poodle. I grasped one of his glass balls and shook up a snowstorm. He put down his drink, buzzed Greene and asked him where was the Bendricks. Greene shrugged, even on the talk-box.
After a few long minutes, Greene buzzed back. The fat man twirled the volume and I heard Greene's tiny voice loud.
'The Bendricks is what the locals call Llewellyn's newest and biggest plant. It's a four-mile automated wonderland just west of Cardiff. It used to be the Bendrick Marshes.'
'What goes on there?' I said.
'Well,' said Greene, 'a funny thing. I got on to Seebie about that, and nobody knows.'
'Don't be daft,' said the fat man.
'No, sir,' said Greene. 'What I mean is, Seebie says there's a trickle of big switchgear, circuit-breakers and suchlike out of the place, but on paper anyway, the whole plant is at about one per cent productivity. Seebie says every time he tries to talk to Alleiec about this particular operation, he's stonewalled. Union trouble, computer breakdowns, things like that. Seebie says they've been double-talking him for a year or more.'
'Union trouble?' I said. "That's a laugh. The union sun shines out of Llewellyn's curly blue eyes.'
'Yes,' said Greene. 'That's what Seebie says. But he says he has to accept it. He sent someone down to look the place over, but it's stiff with A.S. men like it was Harwell or something.'
'A.S. men?' said the fat man.
'Allelec Security,' said Greene. 'A pretty solid outfit. They poached quite a few of our lads over the years, you remember? Some of Seebie's too, apparently.'
'Right,' said the fat man. 'Thank you, Greene.'
'One thing, sir,' said Greene. 'What shall I tell Seebie? He wants to know why we want to know.'
'Tell him we're doing a crossword,' said the fat man. 'No need for inter-departmental deceit.' He switched off.
He sat and thought a few minutes. Then he slipped Llewellyn's photograph from the folder on his desk and propped it against his lamp. We both looked at it. It was the picture the newspapers most liked to use, full-length to show how big he was. His heavy, handsome, well-shaved, well-lit face gazed out at us, ready to trigger us both into some dynamic deed that would bring the cost-of-living index down another point and put another couple of million in his pocket at the same time.
'What do you think?' I said.
'I don't know,' he said.
'I'd like to look around the Bendricks,' I said. 'And Castle Cork on Friday.'
'Maybe,' he said. He buzzed Greene again. 'Where's Castle Cork?' he said.
'That's not the way to say it, sir,' said Greene.
'What's that?' said the fat man.
'Kastesh Korccch,' said Greene. 'Llewellyn's place near Cardiff.' He spelled it out, Castell Coch. 'It means the red castle,' he said. 'Seebie told me about it.'
'I didn't know you were a bloody Welshman,' said the fat man.
'Oh, I'm not, sir,' said Greene. 'My school was evacuated to Kavarther.' He spelled that out too. Cyfarthfa.
'Thank you, Greene,' said the fat man. He looked at me and looked at the picture of Llewellyn.
'I don't know,' he said. 'Putting Musgrave on his tail as a matter of routine is one thing. Snooping around his business is another. He's a real heavyweight, you know.'
'He's not altogether kosher, either,' I said.
He got up and walked around his room. Then he paused and straightened a signed photograph of Rosa Lewis.
'Look,' he said. 'Leave it with me. I'll have lunch up the market and talk a bit.' He looked at his watch and brightened. 'Ha,' he said, 'it's not twelve yet.' He looked at the little round table by the window where his scrabble board was laid out at the ready.
3 a date,' I said, 'with Schneider's secretary.' "Good boy,' he said, and switched me off. So I went down-sciiri. The new copper said nothing again. "Can't you think of something else to say?' I said. •Huh?' he said.
•Bloody coppers,' I said,.and walked out and into Holland Park. But the comprehensive noise from the new school was too much. I cut down into Notting Hill Gate, and strolled beneath the big white blocks of little white flats, and on down the Bayswater Road.
The pavement was rilled with mrirning strollers, pretty'girls with stretch tights and fish frails, silky-bearded boys in felted sweaters, Irishmen looking for the first drink, last night's tarts out shopping with the children, and here and there a-television face. It was the sort of day'when bed-sitters lie in and stroll out late to telephone a sick headache to the office.
Over the way, the sun was shimmering the grass, and the Hyde Park sheep were keeping it down. I crossed the road and walked on it. I thought I would walk.right across to Knights-bridge and take a taxi from there to Angie on the embankment. I am a pushover, I recognised, for tall dark strangers with strong hands, cool smiles and long legs.
I cut across the grass towards the edge of the Serpentine. Far across the water, Lansbury's Lido gleamed brown with oiled flesh and the chlorine boat laboured back and forth, making the world safe to swim in. I reached the edge and set off up the wide path towards the bandstand. My feet crunched on the gravel; the chlorine boat chugged, a boy in a skiff ahead nearly lost his scull and his girl's giggle floated from the bank across the flat' brown water. Up on my left, behind thepark-'keeper's desirable residence, a motor roared.
All in all, I was feeling fine. I had done very little, I suppose, but enough to keep my end up with the fat man. But this led me to wonder idly who he would lunch and what he would decide. Which was imponderable. At best, he would go ahead, give me my.gun back and let me follow my nose. At worst I was free of the office for the rest of the week.
Now I was nearly level with the boy in the skiff. He had taken his shirt off and I was vaguely contemplating the white skin of his chest against the brown of his arms. I was even more vaguely listening to the roar of the motor away in the trees behind me, and registering an apathetic protest against traffic in parks.
Then the boy in the boat yelled and his girl on the bank screamed. I clicked back into focus and heard the roaring engine where it really was. Not in the trees, but right behind me. I jumped to the right and rolled, and with my head almost in the water I saw a Land Rover crunch past, accelerating fast. I also felt it. The driver changed up into top gear, and before I had turned myself up the right way he had filtered into the traffic of the new ratrace around Park Lane.
I realised that my right hand was resting in the water of the Serpentine and I was shaking like an Austin Seven. I also realised that my eye still held a close-up image of the truck, sharpened by shock and retained by training. It was an upside-down image.
as I had been. Two men, no faces, just two backs and two heads. A greasy one above a black leather, copper-riveted back was driving. Beside him was a broad black back and a big square head. The driver I hoped to meet sometime. The passenger I already knew. Tonypandy Williams, the man with the iron fist.
I got up, a little shakily, dried my hand with my handkerchief, added a few pieces of invective to the sympathetic flow from the boy in the boat. We held a shbrt conversation about the dangers of a stroll by the lake, and the boy gave me one letter of the Land Rover's registration. The girl added two figures. I could remember the rest of the number myself and noted it down for the sake of appearances. Then I walked back to Bayswater Road. As I stopped shaking with shock, I started shaking with anger. I jumped on a bus at a red' light, stood on the platform and jumped off at another. I was probably looking as angry as I felt by then, and the conductor neither demanded my fourpence nor asked me to move along.
I steamed up to Addison Road and slammed into the house. If the new copper was there I did not notice him. I stood in front of the fat man breathing hard.
'I'm sorry, Brock,' he' said. 'No time for scrabble now. I'm just off for lunch.'
T don't want to play,' I said. T want to go to work. That bloody Welsh goon just tried to kill me.'
'Well?' he said.
'You don't need to lunch and talk now,' I said. 'Just give me my gun and I'll get on with it.'
'Calm down, sit down, and tell me,' he said.
I did not, of course, calm down at all, and I did not sit down either. But I did tell him and he showed interest. He also showed pleasure.
'Well,' he said, 'I'm glad I had reason to be disturbed. Unless, of course, this Welshman was simply annoyed at you for hitting him last night.'-
'Jesus Christ,' I said. 'How many more murders do you want? Llewellyn's got a lot of motor-cars, you know, and his goons, presumably on his behalf, are using the roads like bloody bowling alleys and your blokes as skittles. Including me.'
T wondered if they were,' he said, 'didn't I?'
'So just give me. my pistol back,' I said.'Some of us have work to do. I've got a marvellous thing going with my eatfood and the sooner I get back the better.'
'Yes,' he said. And with very little more ado he buzzed the basement and told it he was sending me down. 'But don't go beserk down there. I don't know that we have a man in Cardiff.'
'All right, all right, all right,' I said. 'You know I've used it only five times since I've had to follow your nose for you.'
'If you can call it that,' he said. 'And you slaughtered seven people with those five shots, remember?'
♦Eleven,' I said. 'You have to try, don't you?' 'Do you want a chit?' he said. 'Stuff your chit,' I said. 'It's my own pistol.' 'Keep in touch,' he said.
CHAPTERTHIRTEEN
I went down to the basement. Except for the fat man's room and the basement, the place is run on service lines by Greene and, I suppose, Muir. They do more paperwork than all the regulating officers in Portsmouth Barracks, and their sergeants stand stiffer than sentries. Muir once drew a quarterdeck on the first-floor linoleum outside the fat man's door and had the men saluting it. But the fat man ordered new carpet and it all fizzled out. Altogether the group was almost too busy to get any work done.
But down in the basement, Pusser Talbot ran his supplies like a government surplus store. Some groups have the stripe-tied specialists in charge of supplies. Pusser Talbot just used them and made them work. All he knows, he says, about guns, is what he reads in the colour supplements. All he knows about fast cars, he says, is what Basil Cardew said yesterday. But if you want to drive from A to blow up B with a big, soft, plastic bang, he will fit you out while you wait with a packet of Extrion 135, an itinerary and a car to fit it, understeer or oversteer according to the roads he chooses. If the fat man says he can, of course.
All I wanted from him was my pistol, which he says is the most unprofessional weapon he has in stock. But I like it. It is a Kruger Hawkeye Special. The whole group calls it a big-headed pistol, Greene because it is a single-shot, the fat man because it is too big for comfort and Pusser Talbot because the -265 Magnum shells are expensive. But it is the nearest thing to an elephant gun under twelve inches and it will blow any head off its shoulders at fifty yards, as near as I like to get to death.
Greene, in the cause of professionalism and civil service, uses a Colt 45. Muir, who is his father's son, an avid reader and an incipient satyr, carries a Beretta like the brylcreem boys. I just take my Kruger for comfort. Unless I have to do it fancy or unless I am nearly non-operational with fright, I am quite happy to carry it in my luggage or in a spring-back leather binder that looks like a copywriter's unfinished novel. I can reload fast enough, but, in fact, I have never had to shoot twice. The Kruger is designed to make such a spectacular stew of anything it hits that it stops most fights stone cold dead.
Anyway, Pusser Talbot sent one of his young men in among the shelves to find it and asked about transport and special equipment. I told him I was simply out to peep a factory in South Wales. He said he had just the machine for those rough Welsh pony tracks. I told him they had motorways in Wales now .or I could have found myself driving away in some suicidal, rally-type Alfa with dodecahedron valves and farting exhausts.
He also tried to sell me some of his most surplus surplus. A new Russian telephoto in a pigskin hip-flask, a two-foot razor blade that flicked out of a silver bottle-opener, a diary with explosive pages that blows up three and a half seconds after taking out the pencil, and a surgical boot with a radio beacon built into the heel.
Then he got right into his selling pitch and started flogging some of his newest ideas. He brought out a midget amplifier that will transform any telephone receiver into a narrow-beam, long-range sound microscope, a penny half-sprayed with rubber to short-circuit an ICT Atlas computer, and a motorised Graz-iella bicycle that collapses into a small Revelation suitcase labelled Metropole Hotel, Brighton.
'Just give me the cloak and the dagger,' I said, 'and I'll go it alone.'
But I did snap up a couple of aerosols of white plastic membrane. My car is a sober advertising black, and you never know when you might need a three-minute snow job.
'No need to sign for them, sir,' said Pusser. 'It's surplus to requirements.'
'Isn't everything?' I said.
'What?' he said. 'Ha, I see what you mean. I do get a slow turnover, yes. Lot of bloody amateurs up there, if you ask me. Speaking, sir, as one civilian to another.'
'You're right,' I said. 'Well, I'm off.'
'So watch your step, Mr Brock, sir,' he said. 'And talking of steps, I never showed you this nylon string vest. Unravels into a rope ladder. There's a steel grapnel built into the neckline.'
He did not sound as though he needed an answer so I went back up into the sunshine. Pusser had rolled my pistol into his racing edition and put it with my aerosols into a paper carrier marked His Shop. Muir buys his shirts in Carnaby Street. I was late for Angie, but for an extra ten shillings the cab driver beat every light but the one at the bottom of Church Street.
She was still there, swirling melting ice round an empty glass. She was wearing a big white coat with a huge fluffy collar and most of the men in the bar were drooling at her through the corner of their eyes and through the mirrors on the walls. There was a slight savage twist of impatience to her mouth that fed their ancient jungle dreams.
I have had a lot of practice at apologising and she took, my story gracefully. So I bought her another drink and one for myself and it was all very pleasant. We chatted about the sunshine and the river, then about films;- her Bergmann to my Big John Wayne. But we both thought that Trevor Howard would have made a better James Bond than Sean Connery. Then we talked about advertising. We found that we had mutual friends whom we disliked for precisely the same reasons'. And so, relieved of the prospect of having to make adjustments, we both sat back and decided that it was too late for lunch. I bought two more drinks, two sandwiches and two sausages.
It was one of the old disappearing Victorian pubs, full of mirrors. We sat in the highly polished saloon, barred from the spit and the sawdust by a great mahogany edifice glittering with glasses, bottles, plaster Wihstons and fairy lights. Behind the bar on our side of the edifice was an old lady with a large concrete bosom. On the public side was her old gentleman, wearing a slipped wig. She was shuffling her sandwiches and building new castles with her pork pies. He was drinking Vichy water and gazing desperately at the Teacher's on the shelf. Business was slack. There remained only a murmuring school of serious lunchtime boozers and two crossword solvers.
'This is the Allelec local,' said Angie. 'That man at the end of the bar is one of our computer men. Look, he's doing The Times crossword in his head.' - T have to use a pencil with a rubber on the end,' I said.
T can do it with a biro,' said Angie smugly.
The sun was blazing across the river and bouncing from mirror to mirror. The mirrors were painted, and I was sitting, if I twisted slightly, in an infinite tunnel of swans and bulrushes. There were also an infinite number of Angies and I liked every one.
I shoved my chair back on the worn red carpet to change my viewpoint and get out of the tunnel. The mirror became one swan and three bulrushes through which I could see a glimpse of. the public bar. It was almost empty, just a solitary drinker in the darkest corner, a face hidden behind a pint of Guinness. As I watched he put down his glass and I recognised him. I went to the bar for two more drinks and a closer look. I left the drinks on the counter, walked into the gent's, past the creosote smell of the porcelain and out of the other door into the public bar. I walked across the scrubbed planks to the far corner.
I grabbed the big drinker by the collar of his black coat, hauled him up, set my feet solid and hit him very.hard. He was very heavy and did not leave the ground. I stood over him and waited. He was tough as well as big. He opened his eyes, shook his head, saw my feet and worked up to my face. He muttered some sort of Welsh obscenity and started to heave himself up. I should have hit him then, but I wanted to hurt him not black him out. I waited and it was a mistake. He came to his feet faster than he should and closer to me than I have been taught to allow, and I found myself in the sort of bearhug that I should have avoided. I tried to knee him in the groin but he was too close and his legs were like lamp posts.
I felt a crunch in my kidney. Big black clouds with silver linings passed before the sun. So I shot my head backwards in time to miss the nutting that was coming. The old one-two-three is not what it used to be. The tearaway special nowadays is hug tight, rupture his kidneys and nut him hard. When the nutting misses though, he leaves himself open. All the effort goes into the neck and the hug weakens. So I broke out, clasped my hands into a hammer above my head and pole-axed him. The edges of my hands were going to be as black bruised as when Mighty Joe Robinson tried to teach me karate. He went down for good this time and I lifted my foot to kick his teeth out of his head.
'Don't,' said Angie. She was standing behind me. She must have come through the gentlemen's toilet too.
'Shut up,' I said. 'Wait for me outside.'
'No,' she said. And what the hell, the old couple behind the bar were making worried noises and the few saloon drinkers were making a row of faces around the edge of the lavatory door. I saw I had broken a couple of chairs and some glasses. I gave the old dear two of the fat man's five-pound notes.
'This should cover the damage,' I said. 'If there's any change, put it in the kitty and tell him I'll be back.'
I could have told him myself. By the time the old girl had handed Angie's bag and my paper carrier through from the other bar, Williams had woken up. But he was vomiting and would not have heard me. The sight and sound of his retching made me angry again and I must have made a move towards him, for Angie took my arm and led me out into the sunshine.
We crossed the road to the river and leaned over the parapet. I was still angry and she said nothing for a while. A tug tugged past, taking a string of barges back down to berth and we looked down on the lads in the huge empty boxes. In the last one they were playing cricket and as we watched they lost a ball and produced another.
'They must lose a lot of balls that way,' I said.
'They don't have real balls,' said Angie. 'They're rope. Turk's Heads they're called. Splicing. You're very ropgh, Mr Brock.'
'Not really,' I said. 'That man beat me up yesterday and tried to kill me this morning.'
'But it was Williams, our lift captain,' she said. And though her hair gleamed like carved ebony and her hand was strong and friendly on my arm, I wanted to skip the explanations. So 1 told her that she was late and steered her upstream to Alleiec House. I asked her to tell Schneider that I would have to break our date. I was called out of town for a few days.
'Say it polite, love,' I said. 'I may need his job soon, and when can I see you again?'
'Not for a few days,' she said. 'I'm away myself for a bit. On business.'
*Ha,' I said. 'He's as all-American as he looks.' 'For Christ's sake,' she said. 'He loves his dog.' 'It doesn't show,' I said.
'You should see him,' she said. 'He brings it to the office when Lord Llewellyn is away.'
We reached Alleiec House and stood in the shade of the sculpture.
'Well,' I said. 'I'll telephone you when we are both back in London.'
i 'And see the wrestling in Hackney Baths?' she said. 'I'll look forward. And you can tell me why you went berserk just now.'
'Not berserk,' I said, 'latah. It's Malayan blood, I think. I should have had a curly carving knife. AH Malayans go latah from time to time.'
'So do elephants,' she said. 'But they ooze grey stuff to let you know.'
'Where are you going?' I said. -
'South Wales,' she said. 'There's some sort of conference on Friday, though I don't know why he wants me there.'
'Status,' I said. 'No American wheel never goes nowhere without a pair of gorgeous long legs in a big white coat with a Huffy collar.'
'Thank you,' she said. 'I'll see you when we get back. Don't phone me. I'll phone you.'
What a dish, I thought. I watched her cross the courtyard. Posteriors say more than the stars. And I stood in the sunshine, realising that I am a back-of-the-knees man.
I WALKED back through the soft centre of Belgravia to collect my car from its deep freeze under a block of cocktail cabinet flats behind the King's Road, the garage I had started using because it was close enough to be convenient and safer from the Saturday boys than the road. It has a twenty-four-hour service to accommodate the A-class tarts and the furry-bowlered tear-aways from the flats above, and it used to be just a matter of down the lift, into the car, up the ramp and out. But I drive a Volvo and one of the mechanics is a Volvomaniac, so each time I collect the car I have almost to buy it again. Then I gave him carte-blanche to fiddle. He coaxed up the compression and did delicate things with jewellers' tools to the carburettors, I think. He fitted bigger big ends, or maybe smaller ones, tipped the tappets with uranium or something worse and rethought the whole bloody transmission. Now we are friends forever and I have a Volvo which drives twenty-eight miles an hour faster than any other Volvo on the road. But it takes me twenty minutes to get it out of the garage.
I went down in the greasy lift hoping to slip in and get out quick. But Fred called Bert and Bert called Joe and Joe warned me to hold on while he fetched Bill. I got in the car, switched on and sat listening to the sweet, silent throb of the engine until Bill came to explain what he had done to our baby this time. He had been shaving her springs and rerouting her exhaust gases in some subtle way that put another two miles an hour on her top.
'What do we get for the gallon now, Bill?' I said.
'No worry there, sir,' he said. 'We still get thirteen or fourteen on a long run.'
_ 'Thank God for that,' I said. 'Many more of your modifications and I'll be the fastest thing between any two filling stations on the road.'
'That's another thing, sir,' he said. 'You don't use her as much as you should, but when you do I'm glad to see you give her a fair bashing. So I've put you in another tank. Now you can get to Bristol and back without stopping.'
'But I'm going to Cardiff,' I said.
'Take it from me, sir,' he said, 'Bristol's a nicer place by half. They have this camera obscura, you know. Up by the suspension bridge the nuts jump off of.'
'Maybe,' I said, 'but I'm going to Cardiff.'
'It's a better road to Bristol,' he said. 'Faster. And anyway, you can get laver bread in Bristol if you're that keen on the stuff. Only place I ever heard of, in fact, outside of Wales.' .   'What?'I said.
'Boiled seaweed,' he said. 'Delicious fried in oatmeal. A Welsh delicacy,'
'Well then,'-1 said, 'I'll be able to get it fresher if I go to Cardiff, won't I?'
'Oh, no, sir,' he said. 'It all eomes from Ireland.'
'Bloody Celts,' I said.
'Too true,' he said. 'But look, sir, they don't see that many ears in Wales, I reckon. So look after, her, won't you?' 'Who?' I said.
'The Volvo,' he said. 'Those kids can put her off tune just by looking at her. And that coaldust everywhere. It gets in the jets, for Christ's sake.'
'There aren't any coal mines in Cardiff,' I said.
'Maybe not,' he said. And I let the clutch in and drove up the ramp.
_ _ I went home to pack. I put four shirts, tennis shoes, black jeans and a black sweater in the bag. And I packed my pistol. It was nearly three o'clock and I was beginning to look forward to a.sunny drive down the A40 so I decided to lunch out of a glass. A large gin flavoured with sauce and salt, and two tins of tomato juice, to push the stomach walls apart. And while I was sipping I telephoned Greene.
'Is that Universal Export?' I said.
'Who is this?' said Greene.
'Confirming your order of yesterday inst.,'' I said, 'for six punnets of Rhondda Valley leeks and.two tons of Welsh anthracite nuts. Our representative is giving the matter his immediate' attention and will forward a detailed statement in due course.'
'Who is this?' said Greene again.
'Don't you ever go to the pictures?' I said, and replaced the receiver.
I left a note for Miss Frewin who cleans up after me, made 'sure everything Was switched off, threw my bag in the back of the car and drove off, through the park to Marble Arch,, where the A40 starts and goes all the way to Wales.
I think the A40 is the most beautiful road in the guidebook. There is no pleasure in it, of course, until you get through High Wycombe, but after Hellfire Dashwood's big golden ball the road is new enough to be fast and curved enough to be interesting. You can put your foot down along the Oxford bypass and I did so. By the time the kids were coming out of the village schools along the way I was driving over the flat bare top of the Cotswolds, high above the Windrush where the Thames is born. Down in the great spponbed,' stone spires and honey-coloured tiles poked out of fat green copses like travel posters. Then I passed out of Oxfordshire into Gloucestershire and slowed down a little* for the road surface always changes for the worse from county to county out of London. And, since I was ahead of schedule,. I cut off. the main road and indulged myself through
Cirencester and Sapperfon, Bisley, Birdlip, and the Air Balloon. I drove along Roman roads as straight and as flat as virtue and down dim green lanes as bent as a woman's whim. It is my kind of country and I go there whenever I can, for I have a secret cottage there where even the fat man cannot find me.
The half-hour my detour cost me was like benzedrine, for this edge of the Cotswolds is a microcosm of England. The valleys are- each one different and each one the same and the slopes are tidy Breughels. The houses are built in the best-looking places and the drunken English rollers rolled the roads to fit. There are combes no more than a mile from the houses that are too remote to farm. Snakes are there, and lizards, wild garlic and whispering witches. And on Birdlip top, where you can see the smoke of Birmingham and beyond, there are hot dogs and stewed tea.
I stopped the car there and walked to the edge. The Severn gleamed silver before the blue hills. Elgar once looked at the Malverns through his window. He ruled five lines across their face, and from where he sat the peaks made musical notes. He played them and then he varied them. We call them Enigma, but for me the distant hills played only Colonel Bogey, and I went back to the car and ground down the hill behind a ten-wheeled lorry. I was out of my detour and back on the road to Wales, around the Gloucester ringroad and over the river into the apple trees.
From there the A40 climbs up through Monmouth onto the big bald Brecon Beacons and down into the trout fishing, south to Carmarthen and up the coast to Fishguard. But I turned west onto A48, followed the river to Chepstow and settled down to the fast and boring road from there to Cardiff. I lost twenty minutes in the Newport queue, waiting to cross the narrow bridge that bottlenecks the main gate to South Wales. A big, angry, sweating front row forward in policeman's clothing told me there was no other way round that would put less than an hour on my journey. The next bridge was five miles up the river and if he was me he would drive me back to Chepstow and then we would take the train. So I sat back and listened to the wireless and reached Cardiff around seven. There was a little more than one hundred and eighty on the tripmeter in four hours, which came to forty-five average miles per hour. I had touched ninety once or twice on the way, half of which is the same forty-five. The old rule of the road still works. On a long run anyway, a driver's average is still half of his highest speed.
I signed myself in at the Angel, and a bright-skinned, black-haired, chimp-chinned maid took me up to a room high above the Cardiff Arms Park. The goalposts were up, for it was well into the training season, and I stood for a while at the window watching the long flat shadows on the field, remembering old international Saturdays when Wilf Wooller was king. Then, a man with money could always buy a ticket in the Angel up until ten minutes after kick-off, the Cardiff Woolworths sold nothing but little saucepans and big leeks, and all through the night, St Mary's Street was a loose, vomiting scrum of blue serge and white silk scarves. There was a bible in Welsh in my room, too, and I was hungry.
So I showered and powdered like the foreigner I was, and downstairs I asked another chimp-chinned Welsh lovely for a mixed grill and a pint of lager.
After eating, I sat quietly in the Volvo. The scabby western edges of Cardiff rolled past and after about twenty minutes the Allelec plant appeared. It was a big, four-mile strip of coast, half a mile deep, taking in the eastern end of Barry Docks including a deep-water basin and, by the look of it, one of the dry docks. The central workshed was the biggest building I had ever seen, surrounded by all the giant, gleaming laboratory equipment that makes breath-taking science-fiction of modern industrial installations.
The day was fading, and whatever Greene's friend Seebie thought, the place was certainly lit to capacity. It blazed like Piccadilly Circus, especially around the gates placed at quarter-mile intervals along the length of the plant. The eight-foot fence between them would have kept out the savage hordes of Genghis Khan.
Well inside the Barry Docks, the fence cut off towards the sea. I followed around the perimeter, but without a boat there was no easy way to get inside. The fence was run right into the sea. There was a sad-looking island, though, about a mile inside the Allelec area that looked as thought it might get stranded at low tide. Up the coast, at the same quarter-mile intervals as the gates, were stalagtype observation towers like frogs on long legs and the nearest of them was probably observing me. The fading light and looming shapes, the massive fence and the guarded gates were very Sing-Sing, in fact. With a nasty touch of Ravensbruck too. But a white swan with greasy legs squelched out of the water ahead of me and left black footprints on the road. So I pushed the car out of the docks and bought myself the grand mystery tour of Barry.
The municipal advertisement in my roadbook said bright, breezy, bracing, briny Barry, the Blackpool of South Wales. But Barry is a coal dock, and not even as Welsh as all that. When the pitmasters started shouting for ships, horny hands came south from Yorkshire to dig the docks. Then they built themselves rows of little houses, all with a view of the railway sidings, and a number of chapels. There were a lot of bootshops and very little traffic, and I did the town in about ten minutes. Down by the docks, the visiting lascars had generated a small red-light district, just a street of cafes with four waitresses per table, and further west there was a dirty beach of fine dry sand with a scenic railway, paper hats and a floral clock, ten minutes slow. There was also a square mile of charabancs waiting to shovel the loads of day trippers off the beach and drive them and their crates of brown ale back up the valley with fish and chips to follow.
My roadbook guided me out of the town and up to Castell Coch, Llewellyn's folly, perched on the hill with a view of the Bristol Channel. From the road it was just the slightly silly tip of a red brick tower over the trees with a Red Dragon waving from the flagpole, but the dusk gave it a certain Gothic mystery. High above it in the sky was a red star which puzzled me until I twigged it for the warning light of the television transmitter at Wenvoe. The walls of Castell Coch were, of course, castellated and the gate was as solid as the factory gate down in the docks. But about half a mile further on was a row of cottages and a pub. There was just time for a drink so I stopped the car and went in. I ordered a pint of bitter.
'What's it to be?' said the landlord, 'This is a free house, you know. Have what you like, you can.'
'Good,' I said. 'Not so many free houses about nowadays.'
'No,' he said. 'So which will it be?'
T don't mind,' I said, 'and have one yourself.'
'Thank you, ta,' he said. 'I'll give you a drop of the best then, and a good drop of the best it is.'
He pulled a sludgy-looking pint of darkish bitter and held it up to the bulb in the ceiling.
'Look at that, then,' he said. 'If I wasn't a free house I'd be having to have these new tanks in the cellar. Fills the beer up with gas, it does, and takes twice as long to pour. Give me a good old pump any day, man.'
I sipped the stuff. It was as brackish as it looked.
*A good drop of beer,' I said. 'Thank God for free houses.'
'Ay,' he said. 'They better not come here with their takeovers and that. Offering all the money in the world. I'm a free house and glad of it. From the television, are you?'
'Yes,' I said. 'Just down to do one programme, you kncr/.'
'I never seen your face on the screen,' he said.
'Oh, no,' I said. 'I'm just a backroom boy.'
He lost interest in me and there was a long silence while I tried to force down my bitter, sip by sip. Two old men were playing dominoes in the corner. One of them was cheating. Bloody Celts, I though, and smiled at the landlord.
'Funny big place, back there a bit,' I said. 'That's not Cardiff Castle is it?'
'What?' He said. 'No, it's not, Cardiff Castle's in Cardiff. Haven't you been to Cardiff? Up the end of Queen Street, it is, can't miss it. You must have been to Cardiff.'
•'Well, what's this place here then?' I said.
'It's certainly not Cardiff Castle,' he said. He nearly laughed. 'No, man, that's Castell Coch, where Lord Llewellyn lives.'
'Likes his privacy all right,' I said. 'Walls like Portsmouth Barracks.'
'I was Guzz myself,' he said. 'Yes, he keeps himself to himself. Got a lot of art treasures there, I read in the Echo. Must, be
that. There's no pheasants there, for a start.' 'How d'you mean?' I said.
'All his gamekeepers,' he said. 'Soon as he came, he brought all these gamekeepers. Pigs, they are. Never spend a penny. After the women all the time. Huge great dogs they got, too, messing all over the place.'
'How many gamekeepers?' I said.
T don't know,' he said. 'Too many. Randy great brutes though. Put my bitch in the family way first thing.'
'She get an affiliation order?' I said.
'No, the dog,' he said. 'Hey. What are you trying to say?'
'Nothing,' I said. And I gave up trying to drink his disgusting beer and left. I seem to spend a good deal of time in pubs, waiting for people or trying to shake them off. But that little free house ought to be locked up for life.
I turned the car, freewheeled down the road for half a mile and ran onto the grass under the high brick wall of Castell Coch. I climbed up on the roof and examined the top of the wall for electricity, but it was difficult enough without high voltage. The idiotic battlements overhung a good foot. It was high, too. Even from the roof of the car, I had to jump for it and twist like a rocker to swing myself over. This sort of thing is bad for the manicure.
I dropped down the other side as quietly as I could and stood knee-deep in brambles for a long three minutes. The house, I reckoned, was directly above me and the drive was about a hundred yards to my left. Somewhere below me I heard a train. It rattled away into the dead black silence. No gamekeepers, no huge great randy dogs. I hoped. Only big black trees in the big black night. I tried squeaking like a bat, but no radar echoes bounced back, so before claustrophobia set in, I blundered ahead, reasonably silently, for the ground underfoot was damp and lush and did not crackle. After a few minutes of bangs and snaggings, the carrots from my dinner began to work or the going got lighter, and soon I saw the gleam of the house through the trees above me. Then I was on the edge of the wood and the stars showed me the house.
It was bigger and crazier than I expected, real Walt Disney gothic, and the starlight gleamed on points and turrets and arches and slots and bottleglass window panes like Piggy's spectacles. The place was dark, just a glare of light from beneath drawn curtains of one room, but the grass around the place was as empty and as daunting as a moat. Then a bright light switched on and shone straight upon me. I felt as lit up as the fleet ever was, and I froze. But the upright of the window-frame shot a thick black shadow across the grass to the trees. 1 sidled around and walked up it like a tightrope. Nobody barked at all.
There was no one in the room when I got there. I stood melted against the wall waiting until I got bored. I started thinking about getting inside.
I slid along a wall and round the side of the house. It was a marvellous wall to slide along, with nooks and crannies and stripes of black shadow all the way. I carried on sliding until I came to a window which was neither lit nor curtained. It was shut fast though, and probably wired for sound, and celluloid would not have helped even if I ever carried a slice. But I could never learn to master the art, or Morse Code for that matter, except SOS, so I must usually break the glass. Without treacle, too. But even this was not necessary in the Middle Ages. Lead bends, and the little leaded panes of the windows were easily removable. I took one out near the catch and poked around for wire. It felt like a standard Bemmell so I was in luck. The Bemmell is just a lead flex leading in and out from a contact which breaks when the window opens. .Low voltage. Rubber shoes, a pin in the flex each side of the breaker, and a wire looped across the pins shorts the circuit. Taffy is a thief, maybe, but Llewellyn obviously thought Taffy is no electrician. Or else he relied too much on his dogs.
I opened the window, climbed in, closed the window, replaced the glass and removed my pins. The room was black but a crack of light showed me the clear path to the door. The wrought-iron, William Morris latches in these fancy-dress houses are hard on the nerves. They clank like a blacksmith's shop. But still nobody barked. I had those dogs on my mind. I am almost as afraid of big dogs as I am of swans.
I looked out, at last, into a wide, high hall with more woodwork than a Wesleyan Chapel. It was lit in pools by suits of armour holding electric candles and the roof was three galleries high, dim and pointed. Up there in a murk like the mists of antiquity hung banners and flags. It was a set for John Carradine. There was even an organ, waiting in the shadows to play chamber music when.the blood begins to spurt.
There was no sound of life to be heard, no chatter to eavesdrop, no action to observe and what does an agent do then, poor thing? I reckoned it as a write-off and started plotting my way through the shadows to the front door and back to Cardiff to bed. Then the telephone in the room started to ring and stopped me dead. I did not ask for whom the bell was tolling. I felt it toll for me and I was almost under the table when it stopped. This meant that an extension had been picked up, I hoped. I crawled across to the telephone, lifted the receiver very carefully and sat on the floor to listen. An American voice was asking for Lord Llewellyn. I knew the voice. It was Schneider. We both waited as directed, and soon I was hearing for the first time the voice of Tudor Owen Glendower Llewellyn. It was an impressive voice, with the strong deep music of the educated Welshman. None of the disturbing edge of incipient hysteria of the Welsh politician.
'That you, Schneider?' he said. 'Llewellyn here.'
'High, sir,' said Schneider. 'Everything schmoolie here. I've fed them the marketing tranks and run through the deal distribution-wise.'
'Are you drunk, Schneider?' said Llewellyn.
'No, sir,' said Schneider.
'Then stop being American.'
'Yes, sir, of course, sir,' said Schneider very quickly. 'Did you have any difficulty?' said Llewellyn. 'No, sir, not really,' said Schneider. 'They grumbled, of course. But since they know so little of the Bendricks operation anyway, they weren't able to argue. And anyway, I told them the whole reorganisation had your support.'
Llewellyn laughed. 'Reorganisation is a good word.'
'Yes,, sir,' said Schneider. 'Freland talked a lot, of course. Birmingham's getting pretty loaded and he says he can't consider any additions to his security force at present. I told him he can.'
'If you have any more trouble, I'll speak to him.'
'I told him that, too. It shut him up,' said Schneider. 'I've also approved the television script for your announcement. And seen the Growland film. Maldwyn Daniels is bringing it down to Wenvoe tomorrow. We might put it on the closed circuit over the weekend, if you have time.'
'Is that safe?' said Llewellyn.
'Oh, yes, sir,' said Schneider. 'Without your commentary, which you'll be doing live, the film is a simple piece of Welsh history. They're probably wondering how it got networked at peaktime, but that's all.'
'Good. You'd better get down here straight away, Schneider. The Germans are already in the Bendricks.'
'But they're not due, are they?'
'Sullivan took it on himself,' said Llewellyn. 'Insubordinate bastard. Anyway, they're here and it's a lot to hide. You'd better get here as soon as you can. Silverstein and Growland are here now. Hans Breumann is on his way and Fluck sent word by his little friend that he was coming on Friday straight to the meeting.'
'Right, sir,' said Schneider. 'I still have a little work on the details of the announcement.'
'You're leaving it a bit late,' said Llewellyn.
'No, sir. Everything is ready. Just a little more slide rule work. I think I can soften them up a fraction harder. I'll be down there late tomorrow. My secretary is coming ahead with a set of everything. She'll be there tomorrow morning.'
'Good,' said Llewellyn. 'So you reckon we're all set to go?'
'Yes,' said Schneider. 'I'm very satisfied. Two months ahead of schedule.'
'Don't be too sure,' said Llewellyn. He rang off so suddenly that I was nearly left holding the baby. But my finger had been ready and I pressed the rocker at the same instant as Llewellyn replaced the receiver. Then I replaced mine without the tell-tale tinkle and sat for a moment committing all those names to memory. There was some kind of map on the wall that I felt I ought to see, so I drew the curtains, bolted the door, switched on the light, and looked about me. It was some sort of conference room. The big table was covered with a garish-coloured cloth. When I looked closer I saw that it was a flag, green with a big central device, a red bull's head with a heart impaled on each horn.
•The map on the wall was a little odd, too. It was a map of Great Britain. The eggshape of South Wales, from Swansea to Newport and from Dowlais to the coast, was a pale fresh green, and very detailed. The rest of the map was dead black, lavishly sprinkled with coloured spots, confetti that seemed to make ho sense at all. After a while I twigged. The big white spots were industrial and population centres, the red spots were the power stations which surrounded them. The green spots sprinkled between them were probably to do with railways. There were a good number of purple points, especially along the east coast. I. twigged this, too, I think. They were airfields and missile stations. The points varied in size and I was, in fact, looking at a highly detailed electrical anatomy of Britain. There was a switchboard crammed with coloured lights and switches with which I would like to have played but they might have rung bells, so I left them, alone. It was time to go.
I had also had about enough of the burglar bit, and snooping, and the hall was now dark. Everyone was in bed so I left by the front door like a real visitor, and walked down the drive trying .to remember.who Hans Breumann was. It was a familiar name, so ;was Growland. Then, too late, I remembered ..about the 'randy great dogs and I dived into the trees. Of course, by then •I could hear one of them coming after me yelping like Basil Rathbone. I took off fast, but not so fast as all that, so I stopped and turned, feeling like a stag at bay. I was also feeling angry. -I would have kicked myself if there had been time. I can never remember to go out as carefully as I go in. It never seems worth" the effort.
The dog came down the drive like a greyhound, a genuine fearsome sight. It was even drooling, but I was feeling so cross that.I forgot to be.afraid. I dropped to my knees, the way Johnny. Weismuller used to do it with lions, and let the brute jump me. Luckily I had put an arm over my face, for its hind-claws caught me a welt that would have torn my face off. This made me even angrier. I was wearing my new blue lightweight advertising suit.
I turned as quick as the dog, and when it jumped again, so did 1.1 got my head down and under its jaws and got a grip on both its front legs. And as its weight knocked me over I let myself roll and put all my strength into pushing its legs apart. The dog screamed once. I rolled from under it and snapped its neck with my foot. Then its handler jumped me.
But he jumped me from behind and any girl guide knows how to deal with a man on her back, if she wants to. I heaved once/-and he was over my shoulder and into the trees and I dived after him and smashed his face. Then I draggedhim out of thebushes, Wrapped his legs around a slender tree, locked his ankles and.-pushed him hard down so that he was sitting on his heels: This is called the grapevine, .how. to bind a man with no rope. I learned-
6i,
it either on the jungle course at Whale Island or from the tele* vision. I could have tied his thumbs together with his bootlace, but the grapevine is supposed to work without string. And anyway he was out for some time.
Then I belted down the drive, up a tree and over the wall onto the car.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
I DID the nine miles back to Cardiff in ten flat minutes. I was ready for bed when I ran the car down the ramp under the Angel, but I asked the garage man how to get to the central police and walked up St Mary's Street in the moonlight. It was not yet one o'clock, but Cardiff was as dead as a village. No drunks, nc tarts, no traffic, no coppers, not even the dim fights of a coffee bar to brighten the prospect.
In the police station I asked the Duty Constable for the Duty Sergeant and I asked the Duty Sergeant for the Duty Inspector. After a lot of wrangle, I got him. Policemen are more self-important than post-office clerks. The Inspector was one of the little dark Welshmen like horseflies. He obviously resented having to buzz at that sinful hour, but if he had to buzz he was going to insist on his pint of blood.
'What can I do for you, sir,' he said, 'at this time of night?' 'Had an accident, have you?'
'No,' I said. 'I need a little information.'
'I have a constable and a sergeant outside,' he said. 'Who are capable of giving information.' He got up from his untidydesk to lead me out.
'Look,' I said. 'I've been through all that. I want some information, if you have it. I want to use your SX line. And then I want to go to bed.'
But I had to wave my little metal tag, that the fat man says we should never need to use on this side of Armageddon, and the Inspector had to check me with the numbers men in Ilford. He slammed down the telephone receiver and went on buzzing.
'Your central office is supposed to keep us in the picture,' he said. T should have known you were snooping around down here.'
'You do,' I said.
'But not until I find out for myself,' he said. 'And what sort of system is that, then?' 'It works,' I said.
'Does it?' he said. 'How do I know it works? Why should it work, look? We like to know what's happening. This is our patch, you know.'
'That's why I'm here,' I said. 'One of the things I want to know about is the Bendricks.'
*I know the Bendricks,' he said.
'Good,' I said. 'Tell me about the Germans. How did they get there and what are they for?' 'What Germans?' he said.
'Five thousand,' I said. 'At the Alleiec works on the Bendricks.'
'You're off your head,' he said. 'A system called Alien Registration Orders, there is. If you don't know that you've got no right to be carrying that silly tin label. There's no Germans at the Bendricks.'
'All right,' I said. 'Where's your SX line?'
'That's another thing,' he said. 'Strict rules there are. I need authority to let any Tom, Dick or Harry use the scrambler. You can't come in here like that and use our scrambler at the drop of a hat. I need authority.'
'You certainly do,' I said.
'Yes,' he said. 'Superintendent or above, see?'
The little Welsh bastard was getting me down. 'You've got it,' I said. I got up and went to a shelf piled with boxfiles, hoping like hell. I thumbed through the files, pulled one down and riffled through the contents. They were out of order but I found what I was looking for. I threw a slim, manilla-covered printed leaflet onto his desk.
'There you are,' I said. 'EP(Domestic)135/2/8G. You got my little tin tag. It gives my rating. Check it Then tell me where your SX line is.'
He buzzed through the list. It took only a second. The fat man makes sure that all his staff are fairly high up, near the top of the list.
'All right,' I said. 'Choose it. Colonel, Wing-Commander, First Secretary, Chief Superintendent, S2? How shall I sign?'
The Inspector was convinced, brought down, put in his place and properly disconcerted. Without another word he took me upstairs to a small room with the private telephone line and told me he would be in his office when I needed him.
The SX line is simply a foolproof private telephone system on a vast scale, connecting every central police station in the country with each other and with the twenty-two groups in and around London. It is nothing to do with the police, of course, they are simply the custodians of the system, which is why they are so niggly about the whole business. I simply dialled the Addison Road number and Greene answered, immediately. Only the fat man actually lives there but he likes his sleep, so he insists that Green or Muir alternate the night duty.
'It's me,' I said. 'Sorry to wake you.'
'You didn't,' said Greene. 'We've been playing scrabble.'
'How much did you lose?' I said.
'Nearly five quid,' he said. 'What can I do for you?'
'I'm in Cardiff,' I said. 'I don't know what's up, but something is. There's something about five thousand Germans in the Alleiec works. The local coppers have no record of any mass import like that. I'd like to know how they got here and what they are for.'
'Right,' said Greene. 'Will you wait?'
'I would also like whatever you have on these names - Hans Breumann, Growland, Fluck and whoever Fluck's little friend would likely be. And Silverstein. I'll wait.'
'You mean Silverstein the Pinko?' said Greene.
'If he has a mate called Growland,' I said.
'Right, old boy,' said Greene. 'Give me ten minutes or so.'
'Who's your contact in Cardiff?' I said.
'Provis, Ship's Chandler, Hirwain Street down in Tiger Bay,' said Greene. 'I told him you're in the district. If he can help.'
'Thank you,' I said.
I buzzed the Inspector on the internal telephone and asked him if he'd be good enough to come up and see me. He came quickly.
'He's calling back in ten minutes,' I said. 'I'm sorry for pulling that rank, Inspector. I may be needing your help while I'm here, so I hope we can start clean.'
T am compelled, sir, as you know, to co-operate with you in any way that you may see fit,' he said. 'With the approval of my superiors, that is.'
I gave up. The Welsh, like the Scots and the Irish, will never let bygones go by. They have so little else.
'Well, sir,' said the Inspector. 'If I can be of no further use I will go and get on with my work.'
Instead of telling him just how little'usehehad already been, I told him that I would like to get into' the Allelec works at the Bendricks. He sneered..
'That's easy,' he said. 'If that's ,all the help you want, I'll be glad to oblige. My sergeant will take you down and make you known to the Chief Security Officer whenever you like.'
'That's the last thing I want,' I said. 'So I'll soldier on alone. Your sergeant can send me up a street map, though. After I take my call I shall want to get to Hirwain Street.'
'Hirwain Street,' he said, pronouncing it properly, 'is down by the docks in the district you probably know as Tiger Bay.
'Oh yes,' I said. 'Where Shirley Bassey comes from.'
'No,' he said. 'She comes from Splott.' . 'Where?' I said.
'Splott,' he said. 'Not Tiger Bay at all. That's just newspaper talk.'
'Oh,' I said. 'Well, it's Tiger Bay I want then, with or without Shirley Bassey.'
'You'll have to please yourself, of course,' he said, 'but I can't spare an escort at this time of night. You'll have to give me notice. Reasonable co-operation, it says.'
T don't need an escort,' I said. T just want to know where Hirwain Street is.'
'Hirwain Street,' he said, pronouncing it even more properly than before, 'is dubious. My officers steer clear of it, I can tell you.'
'I expect so,' I said.
'Yes,' he said. 'Dubious characters are there. My officers have instructions, in fact, to approach the Hirwain Street area only in pairs. Lascars there are, and Maltese from the ships. And the so-called whites are the worst of the lot. One there is in particular, Provis, a very dubious character. We're watching him.'
"That's the man I want to see,' 1 said.
He said something in Welsh. Then he decided to wash his hands of me. He looked even more like a horsefly. 'Straight on down Bute Street it is,' he said, and the SX line tinkled.
'That you?' said Greene.
'Yes,' I said. 'Hold on a minute.'
I looked at the Inspector and waited. After a while he got the message, stopped rubbing his feelers and buzzed off. 'Bloody coppers,' I said to Greene.
'I know what you mean,' he said. 'Look, old boy, about the Jerries. There's not five thousand of the geezers in the whole country at the moment. Apart from a party of Viennese drongos all tucked up in the Russell Hotel and the normal dribble of au pairs, there's very few of them in the country. They're all going to Capri this year.'
'Well, there's five thousand down here,' I said. 'So how did they get here?'
'Are you sure?' said Greene. 'Have you seen them?'
'No,' I said. 'But I've got ears. Never mind. What about the people I asked you about?'
'A mixed old bag, old boy,' said Greene. 'Breumann, if it's the right one, was easy. He's one of the big fat Zurich money-men. Spends a lot of it keeping out of the news. The Nazis set him up in the thirties, Seebie says, and he's now a real spider. When he jumps up and down on his mountain the flies start twitching as far away as Valparaiso. If it's the same Breumann, that is. Seebie also says he's still a bloody Nazi. Loathes us and never set foot this side of the Channel since we turned him back at Dover in '38.'
'Bloody Swiss,' I said.
'No,' said Greene. 'He's a German still.'
'Bloody Germans,' I said.
'Yes,' said Greene. 'Silverstein was easy too. If he was with Growland it's definitely the Silverstein I thought it was. You know him. The pinko. Never goes anywhere without Growland.'
'What about him?' I said.
'Well,' said Greene. 'You'll know he's a Labour MP for some East London bit. He's more of a twit than anything, always sliding round the edge of whatever's going. Calls himself a manipulator, thinks he's a blood-red kingmaker. Just a bloody red nuisance in fact, Westminster says. They keep an eye on him of course, but he's too pink to be let near anything important and they're not worried.' 'Who's Growland, then?' I said.
'Silverstein's winger,' said Greene. 'You'll know him too. J.J.G. Growland, the television don.'
T know,' I said. 'Brush up your history, and that. And what about FlUck?'
'Well,' said Greene, 'I've never heard of a Fluck. There are two in the London book, but they are just members of the general public, so it's not likely to be them.'
'Why not?'I said.
Tt never is,' said Greene. 'AH members of the general public are good for is getting drunk or in the way.' 'You bloody bureaucrats,' I said.
'Yes,' said Greene. 'And the only other Fluck I ever heard of is Diana Dors' father. But there was just one more in the ex-directory directory.'
'That's him,' I said, 'if he's got a mate.'
'He's got a mate all right,' said Greene. 'He's also got a card.'
He started reading from a yellow chit. 'Nigel Thurston Fluck, born 1917, Caucasian. Physical classification D2.P2/3.X4GGH. Which means, Brock, old boy, he's a big slice of bleeding blond beefcake.'
T know,' I said. 'That's roughly my classification.'
'Had a rinse, have you,' said Greene. 'You had black hair yesterday. Anyway, let us continue. With Fluck, I mean, we already know about you. Fluck, occupation nil. Income, private, around twenty thousand a year. Interests limited to the League of Moral Socialists, known in Shepherd's Bush as the Greyshirt Mob. It's one of the little fascist gangs that do the Portobello Road of a Saturday night. What he's doing down in Cardiff I can't imagine. They've never plotted him further west than Cheltenham before.'
'I remember,' I said. 'He had the bloody Nazis over. What about his mate?'
'I'm looking at a picture of him,' said Greene. 'A skinny, pretty, pasty Welsh green called Ivor Ball. Born on a doorstep in Swansea. But found his father-figure late in life by the look of it.'
'As you say, a mixed old bag.'
'Rather,' said Greene. 'But don't undervalue Ivor. He's a boffin. Not on any secret stuff, of course, with his leanings. He's an electrical power boffin. On a giant Allelec retainer. Seebie says he can play the National Grid like Oscar Peterson plays Fly Me To The Moon.'
'It's all go, isn't it?' I said. 'A big Nazi moneyman, a manipulating pinko, a telly highbrow, a Nazi queer and a boffin queenie. Llewellyn's giving them a party on Friday. I'll try to be there.'
'It won't get you anywhere,' he said.
'Where the hell else can I start?' I said.
I HAVE to give the Inspector his due. Bute Street in the small hours is a little spooky. A sort of provincial Cable Street without the kinks. There are long, long gaps between the street lamps and almost no people. High coloured lights shone between the houses from the docks and on some of the corners stood lascars, like statues, contemplating the nameless things on the hands they do not use to eat. Out of a broken, bright-lit window came animal sounds, out of a black one came a straight ordinary human scream. There was a giggle and a snort from a bombed site. That's how Taffies are born.
Then the yellow light of a lamp showed me Hirwain Street. I knocked the door of a scabby shuttered shop and after awhile it opened.
'Provis?' I said. T just got down from Addison Road.'
'No, you didn't,' he said. 'You got here just after seven. I've been waiting.' He grunted and stood aside. I entered. I followed him through a dark shop to a snug backroom. There were bobbles on the mantelpiece, a big television set on the sideboard and a plush-covered table filling most of the room. In the light he was big, nearly the biggest man I had ever seen. He was a big dresser too, his double-breasted grey suit was so light it was almost white and his shirt had strawberry stripes. We sat down in old deep arm-chairs, each side of the kitchen range where, although it was August, a coal fire was blazing. The room was hot, approaching the point of spontaneous combustion. I tried to breathe.
'Sorry I'm late,' I said. T did the round tour, Barry and Wenvoe, and I've been wasting my time up at the police station.' 'Inspector Reece?' he said.
'I don't know his name,' I said. 'A black little Welshman.'
'That's Reece,' he said. 'That won't get you anywhere. What do you want, anyway?'
'Well,' I said, T want to get into Llewellyn's works down on the Bendricks, I think.'
'Right,' he said. 'I'd like a look around there myself. Just for interest, you know. They've got the place guarded like Alder-maston, but I expect we can manage it. What's it all about then?'
'I'm not at all sure,' I said. 'Some accidental deaths connect up with Llewellyn and led me down here. He has some odd sort of operation going. I'm just following my nose and hoping it leads me somewhere.'
'Often the best way,' he said. 'Right. Like some coffee before we start?'
'Jesus,' I said. T don't want to go this minute. I need some sleep. It's been a long day.'
'If you must,' he said. He looked disappointed. 'Have some coffee anyway.' He went out and came back with a long thin bottle and two tiny glasses. 'Swiss Father William,' he said. 'As Calvados is to apples, so is old Father William to pears. But more so. You'll like it.'
I sipped old Father William with caution. He was right. It was more like pears than Calvados is like apples and it had a •kick like a passionate woman. Through my watering eyes I studied Provis. He had the face of a fat, enquiring chickenhawk and he was not the usual type of local contact. They are not often as big as him, more the little gaberdined back-door enquiry agent. Provis looked as though snooping would come hard to him and quite apart from sheer physical power, he radiated a massive uncomplicated confidence. I thought he would never be run over and I wondered why he was down here in Cardiff instead of up nearer the centre of things. Then the coffee came in a big enamel ship's pot and I knew what he liked about Cardiff. The girl who brought it was golden brown like Shirley Bassey and at least as lovely. A white silk shirt made her golden skin glow brighter and a red skirt clipped her lean waist tight and titillating.
'They told me Splott, not Tiger Bay,' I said.
'What?' she said. Then she smiled. 'Oh, no. There's still some of us left. And anyway, I can't sing.'
'Who cares?' said Provis. 'This is John Brock from London, Steve, He says he's had a long day and wants to go to bed.'
'What a shame,' said Steve. 'Aren't we going out then? I feel like dancing.'
'In Cardiff?' I said. 'At this time'of night?'
'We're not so provincial as all that,' said Provis. 'Not at this end of the town anyway. You can still find a little music after chapel hours.'
'All right,' I said. 'If Steve wants to dance, so do I.'
We went out into the small Cardiff hours. Steve wrapped herself into a seaman's yellow oilskin. It was off the peg of a maritime outfitters, but she looked like Harper's Bazaar. She hooked her arms in ours and steered us down the middle of the road towards the docks. Bute Street looked dead and black but here and there, all the way down, a voice from the shadows hailed Provis. Then Steve steered us round a corner and through a door. According to the writing over it, we were in the Ifor Williams Sailors Haven, licensed to sell tobacco, spirits and ales.
It was a spacious place. The ceilings were high, the corridors wide and the staircase elegant. It was one of the lavish old hotels built for the coalowners and ironmasters who came down from their valleys to watch their fortunes loaded into ships.
'Welcome to the Bleeding Heart,' said Provis. We went through glass doors at the end of the hall and a big noise hit us hard.
The room was filled with tables, people and smoke. There were soft lights and the music may have been sweet, but it was too loud to hear. It was all coming from two thin young men on a small stage and until-1 noticed their mechanical aids I wondered how they could produce the big band sound single-handed. But what looked like a Stingray stage decoration was really about two thousand pounds' worth of noise-making equipment. One of the lads, the one with the tightest trousers, fingered the dashboard of his guitar and I waited for the lightning. But nothing happened except the noise, which went up and up and up and out of this world. Three people clapped and the lads began the long job of manhandling their equipment off the stage.
'Pity,' said Provis. 'Last Sunday, the skinny one shorted his guitar and went electric blue all over. His mate had to give him the kiss of life.'
'I thought it was a part of the act,' said Steve.
'They weren't acting,' said Provis. 'They were in earnest. Let's sit down.'
There were no tables vacant, but he led us through the crush to a relatively quiet corner. He waited a second while two men and a girl offered us their seats, then he thanked them politely and we all sat down. A pneumatic blonde brought a bottle, glasses and something in a linen bag which Steve squeezed into her glass.
'Passion fruit,' said Provis. 'Try it in your Slivovic.' I did and looked around me before I drank. The big room was expensively decorated and so were the customers. Mostly tough little men with big soft women. There was the crystal ball from an old palais-de-danse revolving up in the fog, and it was glittering up a lot of jewellery, on the men as well as their women. The walls of the Bleeding Heart were illustrated with kinky pink cupids and lit by orange balls. The ice-buckets were silver and the ice was red. It was a very well-upholstered joint. Then a spotlight cut' a tunnel through the smoke to light up another well-upholstered joint, attaching a slender calf to a plump thigh. Its owner stepped from the wings, music played, and everybody cheered. She was about the smoothest, whitest, softest, roundest woman I have ever seen. Her hair was silver and she was dressed in shimmering silver sequins the way we think we remember Mae West. Her skirt was as tight as stockings and she hobbled deliciously into the centre of the stage and clapped her hands. Another spot lit a tall mirror. Its frame gleamed gold against the deep black velvet background, and the girl stood before it, silver and still. The music had stopped, and in the silence the girl turned slowly about, admiring herself. And in the mirror her reflection did the same.
Then the faint music of violins floated from the black stage and the girl's shoulders began to move under its caress. We watched the muscles of her back play like snakes beneath the tight silver, and in the mirror we saw her breasts move and part and come together and the cleft between them deepen and narrow. The music grew louder and soon the girl was dancing. There was nothing in the world for her but herself and her beautiful silver reflection.
The music soared and the girl's movements became harder until she was shuddering with the sight of her own beauty. Her •hands, which were making love to herself, grew suddenly savage and she was clawing her breasts and pushing her round buttocks towards her wriggling twin in the mirror. And in the' mirror, the reflection was dancing too. Then the music stopped and there was no sound but the heavy breathing of the men in the room.
In the dead silence the silver girl stood before her silver image. She raised her arms slowly. In the mirror we saw her magnificent breasts rise and tighten as she loosed the clasp of her dress. Without taking her eyes from her image she writhed her body once and the silver dress was a puddle around her feet which splashed into the dark of the stage as her long legs kicked it away. The music came again, faster and louder than before and the writhing dance came faster and freer. Her long arms stretched out to the image in the mirror. And we saw that the reflection was still dressed in silver and standing aloof. The girl writhed faster still and harder and pleaded with her mirrored self. She tore savagely at the silver brassiere that held her breasts and snapped the silver string that cleaved her buttocks. She teased and tempted and pleaded. But the girl in the mirror made no move.
The music swelled high and drums whirled the naked girl into a blur of breasts and thighs and silver hair, as she spun around the stage. Then she jumped high in the air and came onto her knees before the mirror. Her legs were strained wide apart and her white body arched itself back in a final offer, and her high scream of desire stopped the music.
Then the silver statue in the mirror moved. No music played. There was only the echo of the scream in the air. The girl in the mirror raised her hands and let her silver dress fall to the ground. Slowly she peeled the stocking from her long strong legs. The girl on the floor before her moaned again. And the girl in the mirror, in lightning violence, tore off her silver brassiere. Her full breasts came away with it. Then she tore off her silver hair. And the silver strap around her loins. And in the split second before the stage blacked out, a naked rampant man leaped in a thunder of music from the tall mirror onto the white offered body of the girl.
And we all breathed again, for we had been sure that something unnatural was about to happen.
'Well,' I said, into the sweating silence. 'You can't get that at the other end of Oxford Street.'
'She's fabulous,' said Steve, and I realised that she was breathing harder than any of the men about me, and her leg was shuddering against mine.
'Have another drink,' said Provis. He poured some. 'About tomorrow,' he said to me, 'is there a chance of action?'
'Possibly,' I said. 'They've done a few of us already, and they've tried to do me. I don't suppose you get much action down here.'
'Not a lot,' he said. 'It's mostly routine nowadays. I check a ship now and then, and the odd sailor. Cardiff used to be a busy exit point, of course, and then there used to be a little action. Not much now, though. I have a fair working rapport with the harbour master and with most of the coppers except that bastard Reece. We're pretty certain nowadays that not much goes out that didn't come in.'
\ e 'What about the white slaving I used to read about on Sundays?' I said.
'There used to be a bit of export from here,' he said. 'Import too. That's how I met Steve. She was part of a shipment for the Scarlatti Brothers.'
'They paid two hundred and fifty pounds for me,' said Steve.
'You weren't worth it,' said Provis. 'Anyway let's hope that Llewellyn gives us a bit of action.'
'What do you know about him, anyway?' I said.
'Nothing,' he said. 'He's always giving somebody something and his face is in the paper every week. They all worship him down here of course, for bringing back their jobs. But I've never run across him in the course of what we laughingly call my duties. Apart from opening ceremonies nobody ever sees him down here.'
'Carla's seen him,' said Steve. 'Lots of girls have. They go to parties up in Wenvoe now and then.' 'What do they say about him?' I said.
'He's just a man,' said Steve. 'They don't like his friends though. They're all queers or kinks. There's a party on Friday night.'
'You're not going, are you?' said Provis. 'No,' said Steve. 'Look, I've got to go somewhere. Wait for me, will you?'
She left us to our drinks and threaded through the tables towards the stage.
'She won't be back,' said Provis. 'She's mad for that stripper.' 'Which one?' I said. 'The girl,' he said.
'Can't you do anything about it?' I said.
T don't really mind,' he said. 'I'm trying to give her up.'
'That'll be difficult,' I said.
'About tomorrow,' he said. 'Come to my place after lunch. I'll fix up something to get us into the Bendricks. Bring your car.'
'All right,' I said. 'You coming?' 'No,' he said.
I looked back from the door. Provis was looking hard into his glass. He may think he's trying to give her up, I thought, but he's hooked. The harder they are, the bigger they fall. And I went on out. A man walked towards me blowing a wet cloud of carburetted whisky before him.
'Where are we aUgoing?' I said.
'Down the passage, first left,' he said. 'Excuse the mess on the floor.'
So I walked back up Bute Street to bed. And I slept through breakfast.
Cardiff on a sunny Thursday morning is much like any other city on a wet Monday. I walked slowly through the market hall, a great dreary piece of self-conscious Victoriana filled with shivering rabbits and Pakistani haberdashers. There was also a display of laver bread, the great Welsh delicacy, a pile of black slime on a dirty marble slab.. Running around the place was a wide gallery, and I climbed the stairs, bought a fifteen-year-old Astounding Science Fiction from a wastepaper stall and ate a meal alone in a little bead-curtained booth. They smuggled me a bottle of Guinness against the corporation rules and I filled myself slowly and nostalgically with sausages, mash, apple tart and thick brown tea. Then it was time to collect the car and fetch Provis.
Bute Street was not half so sinister in the daylight. Lorries loaded, rubbish festered, children shouted and Steve stood behind the counter wearing a man's shirt and black slacks. She looked fresh and well rested, and led me into the parlour.
'Good,' said Provis. 'It's all fixed up. We're a freelance reporting team doing a thing on the new Welsh affluence. You know, bingo clubs and Cortihas. You're the photographer.' He gave me a battered Pentax and a leather case full of gadgets. He also gave me a Western Mail press card. 'This is for the windscreen.'
'I'm notmuch of a photographer,' I said.
'Doesn't matter,' he said. 'There's no film in it. It's just for seeing through.'
Steve was standing around looking gorgeous and sulking.
'Go on,' said Provis. 'Back in the shop. We may get a customer.'
T want to come with you,' she said.
'That's what you should have wanted last night,' said Provis, and went out to the car. He guided me through a warren of little streets and out of Cardiff past the Grarigetown mudflats.
'What happened last night?'I said.
'Oh, she wanted to stay with that silver-haired slut in the Bleeding Heart,' he said. 'There was a bit of a bundle. I got angry all of a sudden.'
'I should have stayed,' I said. 'Did you need any help?'
'No,' he said. 'The day I can't manage a bunch of drunken welshcakes, I'll go and buy a chicken farm. Keep right at the next fork.'
So we drove on in silence and the eastern boundary of Alleiec appeared. Provis told me to stop at the main gate. He got out of the car and walked to the gatehouse. After a while the first of the two heavy steel barriers lifted and Provis beckoned me through. It clanged back after me. I felt like a cow in a serving pen. He got back in the car while a big guard, another Tony-pandy Williams, looked at me hard. Behind, I heard a clunk. Another big taff was looking in the boot. They were unarmed but they both wore whistles on lanyards and they had at least three mates waiting watchfully behind a big window in the gatehouse. Then the guard waved us through and whistled up the second barrier, and we were in. 'Like getting into East Berlin,' I said.
'We're to be met at the visitor's car park,' said Provis. 'Drive straight on.'
We were driving towards the huge central shed that I had seen the night before. It was bigger even than I had thought. I reckoned it about twice the size of Olympia and as solid as the Albert Hall,
'It's big,' said Provis. 'What goes on in here?'
'I don't know,' I said. 'They don't know in London either. Perhaps we can find out.'
The visitor's car park was marked big and unmistakable, giving no excuse whatsoever, so we turned in. Anyway, a man was waiting there. He waved us in, and waited while we walked back to him.
'You're supposed to be a photographer,' said Provis. 'I know,' I said.
'Well, go back and get your camera,' he said.
The mangreeted us with smooth, sincere, executive charm.
'Good morning, gentlemen,' he said. 'I'm Malcolm Twyn-ham, of public relations.'
He was tall, young, slender and he swayed in the breeze of his own charm as he guided us up the road chattering elegantly about the sun, the test match, skin-diving and the old days with the regiment in Malta. He talked a lot about his job too.
'You chaps can do a lot for British industry,' he said. 'Lord Llewellyn is hot as a Bengal curry for co-operation with Fleet Street. He says that affluence comes out of productivity. He's very hot on productivity too. He says that productivity comes out of national enthusiasm generated by informed public opinion.'
'Public opinion,' I said, 'has certainly been informed about him.'
'Yes,' he said. 'Ha, ha. Well, gentlemen, I'm completely at your disposal. Nothing to hide, as the actor said to the bishop.'
'What goes on here?' said Provis. We were walking in the shadow of the great central shed and I was peering through my Pentax, hoping to see something.
'We're designed for everything,' said Twynham, 'and automated more comprehensively than any other production unit in the world. Not automated, you understand, for redundancy but for productivity. Far from it in fact. The full establishment here is fifty thousand workers. At present, though, wz zt •producing heavy-duty gear..Look oyer there.' He pointed sos huge piece of red and grey machinery standing like a penned mammoth behind danger-red steel fencing. 'That's a new-style circuit breaker on test. Biggest in the world. It's just a fuse, really, like in your box at home. But big* as you can see. There are five million volts building up inside that baby, and, that's, power on a national scale.'
'What happens when there's an overload?' I said.
'Just a bloody great bang,' said Twynham, 'and a genuine flash of lightning, but that's doused in the oilbath here. No harm, of course. Then the local control switches it back intci-operation,'
'What happens,' said Provis, 'if a thing like that goes out faulty?'
'Couldn't happen, old 'chap,' said Twynham. 'Nothing leaves Alleiec unless proved perfect. Our quality control system is foolproof.'
'Stop publicly relating, old man,' I said. 'Nobody's perfect.'- ■ 'We are,' said Twynham. 'And anyway, one circuit failure in a sophisticated.network like the modern National Grid, since Lord Llewellyn has been in charge, won't put out the lights, you know.'
'But suppose all these monsters failed at once?' I said,
'As I say,' said Twynham, 'it's, impossible.'.;
'And supposing,' said. Provis, 'they all of them never failed,-even when they, were supposed to? Suppose they all stayed, connected. It would be like putting a safety pin in the fuse box* Nothing would burn it out.'
'Well,' said Twynham, 'that's impossible, too. But interesting. Given a sufficient surge of power,! suppose every plug in the" country would blow its fuse.'
'And that would certainly put all the lights out,' I said. 'And all the cookers and the refrigerators and hairdriers and the other hundreds and thousands''of Llewellyn, symbols.between John's. End and Land o' Groats.'
'Ha, ha,' said Twynham. 'We'd certainly all be out in the cold then, old boy,'
'The railways would stillrun though,' said Provis: 'We could all wrap up and eat on the Brighton Belle.'
'As a matter of fact,' said Twynham,, 'you're wrong. I'fei no technician, • of course, but I fancy that if on this ludicrous hypothesis all Alleiec switchgear fails simultaneously with a power surge, then all the old choo-choos would stop too. I say, this is a fun thought. I'd love you chaps to meet Ivor Ball.'
'Who's he?'I said.
'The big deal boffin,' he said. 'You'd Hot think it'to look at him, mind you, but he pulls down a lot of money. I'll never get the hang of these eggheads,. Walks around like a prima donna, scratching his crutch with a slide rule and muttering in Welsh. God knows what he's saying.'
'Get out of the road, you English bastard,' said Provis.
'What?' said Twynham.
'Perhaps that's what he's saying,' said Provis.
'Oh,' said Twynham. 'Yes, I see. Ha, ha. A brilliant brain, of course. Makes it all look so easy. He can lay out this whole set-up so as a five-year-old can understand it. You'll have to meet him.'
By that time we had reached the main building. Another security man was guarding the entrance.
'This is the only way in,' said Twynham. 'Wait while I show my pass.'
THE guard took his job seriously but he let us in and Twynham resumed his executive grace and we did the full visitor's tour, a circular of big clinical workshops and sparking laboratories. Everyone wore white coats and they were all working in silence. Each room led into the next on some sort of flow system and there were no windows, only daylight fluorescents. Men in white coats worked in silence on all sorts of switchgear, I supposed it was, all the familiar household shapes of electrification and insulation scaled up to giant size. I clicked my camera a few times. Provis asked a few intelligent questions, a man in thick spectacles made lightning for us and his mate worked a computer. Lights winked at high speed, and we looked impressed. For that matter, we were. We saw very few workers, though, for such a big operation, and the feeling of immaculate order and high voltage put the same hush in the air as men must have felt in the great cathedrals when they were new and gleaming. It took more than an hour to do the circle but at last we were back where we started and the guard checked us out.
'One way in and the same way out,' said Twynham. .'It's-a piece of organisation and method straight from old Llewellyn. He says it's for easy clocking but it's really security of course. And a good thing, too. I was with BMC at Longbridge before this, and up there pilfering is chronic. It's all true you know. They never nabbed one bloke till he tried to get out of the main gate with a radiator block under his jacket. He had the rest of the bloody Mini ready assembled in his parlour.'
'I suppose so,' I said. 'Must form a queue, though. But I must say it looks bigger than it really is. If we've seen it all, that is.'
'Well,' said Twynham. 'Tell the truth, old boy, there are two small sections in there under strict security seal. Just for the present, you understand. I'm not even clued up on what's happening myself yet. Just some boffin's flight of fancy. Ah, here we are.'
He led us to a row of tricycles with double passenger seats in front like Singapore rickshaws. They were plugged into what looked like parking meters. He switched off one of the meters, pulled the machine out into the road and motioned us into the front seat. 'I'll drive,' he said. 'One of the boffins' toys, this is. Three horse-power Alleiec motor, recharges itself at its parking meter. I think it'll take the strain, chaps.' He pressed a switch and we whirred silently up the road past the rest of the layout. There were canteen blocks for the full forty thousand establishment, social halls, a small helicopter pad. The site encroached on the neighbouring docks of Barry and included a deep-water jetty. There -.vas a biggish cargo boat tied up. It was flying a grees nag with a red bull's head, a bleeding heart impaled on each horn.
That's a queer flag,' I said, over my shoulder, to Twynham.
"Yes.' he said. T don't like it myself. A bit sick, I thought. But Llewellyn uses it a lot. Flies one on his Rolls, sometimes.'
We carried on round the area. Here and there I got him to stop so that I could pretend to take pictures as I was supposed to be doing, picture of fat, happy Welsh workers basking in the sunshine of thirty-five quid a week. They were hard to find. The place was surprisingly empty except for the black-uniformed security men who popped up around almost every corner and examined Twynham's pass each and every time. We asked about them.
'You may well ask,' he said. 'The most comprehensive security force in British industry. Disciplined, discreet, and incorruptible.'
'And all dressed in black,' said Provis. 'How are they at the old goosestep?'
'What's that, old man?' said Twynham.
T was just thinking,' said Provis.
'Yes, old boy,' said Twynham. 'Of course. Llewellyn's as proud of his security men as of anything in his whole empire. Looks after them like a father. They're nearly all Welsh, of course. That may account for it. And they worship him.'
We were now bowling down the edge of the works beside the sea. Twynham stopped beside a telephone oh a steel pole. ' 'Hang on a jiffy,' he said. 'I'll just see if they're about to bang Our big baby over there.' He chattered into the phone.
'Well,' said Provis to me, 'it's all very interesting, but we -.haven't seen much, have we?'
'No,' I said. 'I don't think we've seen a quarter of it'
'You mean the main shed?' said Provis. •
'Yes,' I said. 'The inside doesn't add up to the outside. The workshops are big all right, but they're not as bloody big as all that. There's a hollow centre to the place.'
'A big one too,' said Provis. 'Let's try to hang around.'
.Twynham sauntered back. 'Out of luck, I'm afraid, chaps,' he said. 'They're building the power up to something astronomical over there and it's going to take time.'
'Never mind,' I said, 'we'll imagine it.'
'It's, very loud indeed,' said Twynham. 'Anyway, come and meet the boffin.' He bowled us on down the road, past the little island now nearly stranded as the tide went out, and up to a white building on the edge of the sea. 'This is Control and Planning,' he said.
THE guard examined his pass and our faces and buzzed his mates inside. We were led up to an office on the first floor, where a girl welcomed us and asked us to wait. Dr Ball would be with us in a few minutes. It was a pleasant room, overlooking the sea with large french windows leading onto a wide terrace. There was no desk in the room, just several draughtsman's easels under a clutter of blueprints. One wall was a blackboard that was a mass of intricate gibberish and in one corner was a punched card sorter. In front of the windows were armchairs and a low table. 'A pleasant place to work,' I said.
'It used to be a sanatorium until Llewellyn took it over,' said Twynham. 'Tuberculosis. This was one of the private wards.'
Then Dr Ivor Ball came in, as ladylike and lanky as Greene had described him. He went straight to one of the easels and picked up a slide rule. But he did not scratch his crutch with it. We were all introduced.
'Mr Brock and Mr Provis are gentlemen of the Press,' said Twynham.
'So I understand,' said Ball, with what must have been a put on Welsh accent. 'I'm afraid I don't know how I can help them. I hope, Mr Twynham, you have told them that I am no Chapman Pincher.'
'Thank God for that,' said Provis.
'What's that?' said Ball.
'We working reporters,' I said, 'like our science straight from the horse's mouth.'
'Aha,' said Ball. 'Aha. Not from a wooden-headed rocking horse, if I take your meaning.'
'Far from it,' said Twynham. 'Earlier on, these gentlemen were putting a wild hypothesis to me, and I thought it would amuse you, sir.'
'Oh,' said Ball. T must confess, I am always interested in hypotheses, the wilder the better. That is our business, gentlemen. First we catch them, then we tame them, then comes the domestication, eh? The story of electricity.'
'Yes,' said Provis. 'We were looking at the big circuit breaker you have in the test pen out there.'
'Ah, boyo,' said Ball. 'There's a beauty for you. We're building her up just now. When she breaks, and bang on the dot she will, mind you, they'll hear her in Cardiff. No, damn, they'll hear her in Newport.' He started muttering in Welsh.
'If she doesn't break on the dot,' said Provis, 'what will happen?'
'No, no, no,' said Ball. 'Never you mind, boy. Nothing to
worry about. We'll wreck a lot of equipment is all.'
'Yes,' said Provis. 'This was our point. As far as we can see, all the electrical equipment, and all the small stuff for that matter, in the country, is Allelec-designed.'
'You're right, boy,' said Ball. 'And for the last eight years, it's all Allelec-installed, too.'
'Exactly,' said Provis. 'What happens if it all fails? Say it all fails at once. Would it wreck all the electrical equipment in the country, or simply blow five million fuses and switch everything off while we all fumbled around in the dark?'
'What?' said Ball. He stood up and walked to the window. There was a longish silence, and when he spoke again, he spoke in a sharper voice. 'What the hell are you talking about?'
'How good is Allelec testing procedure?' said Provis. 'That's all.'
Ball stayed at the window, looking at the sea. The silence was even longer this time. Provis broke it.
'We know how good Allelec security is,' he said. 'All these Nazis marching about the works.'
Even Twynham realised there was something up by now. He fingered the minute knot in his Old-type tie. And I fingered my Oxford-and-Cambridge pure alpaca. Ball turned and walked over to Provis. He no longer shambled. He was no longer vague. All the cartoon boffin touches had gone and he stood over Provis hard and clever, radiating danger.
'What the hell are you talking about?' he said, again.
Provis was undisturbed. 'Just a wild thought,' he said. 'This is a big place. They just made lightning for us.'
Ball looked hard at him for a while. Then he looked at me. Then he transferred the hard glitter of his eyes to young Twynham, who stopped fingering his tie, sat up straighter and looked worried.
'What have you been showing them?' he said.
'Just the usual press trip, sir,' said Twynham, 'around the workshops and labs, and we triked around the area. Then straight here.'
Ball grunted. 'Get Sullivan,' he said.
Twynham shot out of the room and we all waited for someone to speak. Ball brooded at the window. Provis settled himself in his chair and stuck his long thick legs half across the carpet. I took a cigarette from my breast pocket and lit it. Ball turned and looked at us. Provis whistled a tuneless tune. I blew a smoke ring. And Twynham came back into the room, leading a bigger, bonier, tougher version of himself.
'Ah, Sullivan,' said Ball. 'These are journalists, they say. I think they're snoopers. Get rid of them.'
Sullivan looked at Twynham. 'Where'd you get them?' he said.
S2
'Western Mail,' said Twynham. 'One of the subs rang me this morning and asked me to fix them up.'
Sullivan looked at me. 'You from the Western MailV he said. 'Did Cockerell send you?'
'Well, not exactly,' I said. 'We're a freelance team looking for a feature.'
T see,' said Sullivan. 'You'll have to come with me.' He looked at Twynham. 'Get on to the guardhouse. Tell them to send the truck now.'
'But...' said Twynham.
'Shut up,' said Sullivan.
'Yes, sir,' said Twynham, and went out.
'All right, you two,' said Sullivan. 'Come with me. And I'll take that camera now.'
'I'd like to keep it,' I said. And Provis got up out of his chair. It was a bit of a shock for Sullivan. Provis, until he stood up straight, looked a bit overweight. Stretched out, he looked like a mountain. But by the time he was on his feet, Sullivan had a gun in his hand. So Provis sat down again. He looked at me and shrugged.
'That's not very public relations,' I said, handing him the camera.
'Shut up,' he said. We waited for about two minutes. Then the door opened again and Twynham came back with three security men. Sullivan motioned us out with his pistol. The guards crowded us down the stairs and into an electric truck which whirred us all across the site to the main gate. Then we were crowded into the gatehouse, through a front room with all the feel of an army guardroom into some sort of interview cubicle. The door clanged behind us. Provis shrugged and sat down on one of the wooden benches. I tried the window. It was no way out. Then the door clanged open. Sullivan came back with two guards, both armed, and my camera. He sat us both on one side of the table and placed himself on the other.
'There's no film in this camera,' he said.
'Damn it,' I said.
'You've done it again,' said Provis. T am a fool,' I said.
'We'll never break into journalism,' said Provis. 'You can talk,' I said. 'I'll take a small bet you forgot your notebook again.'
'Shut that crap,' said Sullivan.
'Well, said Provis. 'He's forgotten his film once too often. I've finished with him.' He folded his arms in a flounce of defiance.
T don't care,' I said. T never wanted to come down here in the first place. Who's interested in a mob of bloody taffies anyway?'
'Shut up,' said Sullivan again. He shouted so loud that the two goons behind him jumped and presented arms. So we •stopped talking.
'The Western Mail have never heard of you,' said Sullivan. 'Whatever you are, you're certainly not bona-fide journalists. And at the very least you got in here under false pretences. You-may or may not know that by doing so you have infringed the-Official Secrets Act. Within the boundaries of any Alleiec. property I have full police powers which I now use to arrest you on suspicion of industrial espionage.'
'Get stuffed,'I said.
'YOU will have to remain here until enquiries are made,' said Sullivan. He got up and left, leaving the two goons with us. We sat back. Provis whistled his tuneless tune. I looked at the goons.
'Do you know Tonypandy Williams?' I said tothebiggestone.
He looked at me and looked away.
'You look like him,' I said. I walked to the window and looked out. Sullivan was bundling Twynham into a chauffeur-driven Princess. I watched it out of the gate. It accelerated up the road towards Wenvoe. Goodbye, Twynham, I thought. Provis joined me. I walked up to the goon.
'You're sure you don't know him?' I said, looking closely into his face. 'You could be his brother. His idiot brother.'
The goon put the barrel of his gun in my belly and pushed. It was no ordinary gun. The barrel was about as long as a peashooter and slightly narrower, ending in a smooth, egg-shaped swelling above the grip. There was no orthodox trigger and the. whole thing seemed to be one moulded piece of silvery metal. It looked like a fugitive from children's television, but in the big hands of the goon it also looked dangerous. I was just about to decide to do something when Provis moved.
He moved faster than anyone I have ever seen. From lounging at the window, whistling his gibberish, he was suddenly across the room chopping the pistol to the floor. With the same arm he delivered a terrible backhanded crunch to the goon's face; and there was a tiny scream as the man crumpled. But by then Provis was reaching out for the other one. He went low, and as he straightened he brought he big balled fist right up from the ground with him. The guard took it right on the chin, and his head snapped back with a loud, nasty sound. This was the first time I ever saw a man's neck broken by an ordinary, orthodox, common-or-garden uppercut.
Well, I thought, he's running away with the action. He's supposed to be assisting me, not taking over. So, mainly to assert my position, while he was picking the pistol off the ground I whooped through into the front office and straight into one of the three guards. I picked him up and threw him hard at the other two. Only one of them got up so I finished him off with a foot in his crutch and the biggest punch in my book. It connected with a noise like a gasometer going up.
'Christ,' I said. T never hit that hard before.'
'It's that bloody circuit breaker,' said Provis behind me, 'not you. Get on with it.'
'Right,' I said. 'Tie them up while I find which button works the gate.'
So he tied up the three goons and shoved them in with the others. I snatched one back and propped him on a chair in front of the observation window. There was one more guard left. He looked in at us, saw his mate drooping in his chair. I beckoned him in and when he came through the door, Provis bashed him with the pistol.
'Let's go,' I said. I pressed the button that opened the front gate.
Plugged into the wall, at the side of the guardhouse, were some of the electric frikes. I pulled one out of its socket and mounted. Provis loaded himself into the front and we bowled around the back of the building and up the bare road back into the works.
'Where are we going?' said Provis.
'The main shed,' I said. 'When they find the mess, they'll think we've_ scarpered. So let's find what we came for while we're here.'*
'Why not?' said Provis. I pushed the trike up to its tiny maximum. But it took a long time to reach the main shed.
We dismounted and plugged the trike casually into its meter. Then we sauntered like Twynham up to the guard at the door. He straightened up.
'Oh dear,' I said. 'That nice Mr Twynham not here yet?'
'No,' said the guard. 'Coming to meet you here, is he?'
'Yes,' I said. T hope so. We've been over in Control. He was called away.'
While I was talking, Provis had walked into the shadow of the doorway and was mopping his face with a lilac handkerchief. The guard opened his mouth to warn us off. But Provis spoke in a petulant voice.
'Beastly heat,' he said. 'Come over into the shade at once, darling. I've told you before it's absolute death to your complexion.' He looked at the guard. 'He just doesn't care. I'm sick to death.'
And the guard closed his mouth, grinned and let us stay in the shade. In fact, after a moment he joined us, either to get another giggle or because he was like that himself. A lot of coppers are, they say. Anyway, Provis knocked him cold, gagged him with the handkerchief and tied him up with his belt. We dragged him into his little kiosk and locked him in, and inside the building we looked around us. We needed to do a slow, unchallenged tour of the workshops and we wanted something to carry. Every establishment is the same. So long as you have something to carry, nobody questions you. I once spent five weeks carrying an out-of-date railway warrant around Plymouth Barracks and all I got was the exercise. We needed something big this time to camouflage our faces.
Provis pointed out a long insulator shield. We heaved it onto our shoulders and set off the way Twynham had taken us earlier in the day, through the long system of workshops and laboratories. We walked slowly, as though our burden was heavy, but purposefully as though we had a destination. We kept our heads down and nobody challenged us. Now and then we paused, as though for a rest, for we had to look like workmen. And after what seemed like half a mile, and the place was so big it could easily have been that far, Provis called a halt. We were in a smaller room than the rest, and it was empty of equipment. It was empty of people too, so we unshouldered our load.
Provis pointed to the floor. It was newly polished, and as far as I could see, spotless, but Provis moved me to where he stood. The light caught a pattern in the glossy floor, a pattern of heavy duty tyre tracks. They stretched straight from one wall to the other.
We looked more closely at the wall, then. It was almost imperceptibly slitted at the corners. A conduit for pipes and cables ran across the wall about fifteen feet up, and behind it I saw the gleam of a well-oiled roller. The outside wall, in fact, appeared to be built from the same painted concrete blocks as the rest of the place, but it was a disguised secret door big enough to allow the biggest transport lorries to pass through.
The inside wall was also, of course, a fake, but we could find no way to open it. It was bare, except for a six-foot steel box painted with high-voltage danger signs. This we opened, and we walked straight through into a wide corridor that swerved away to our left. There was no one in sight and we could hear nothing, so we carried on walking.
We passed a few doors behind which we could hear no sound, chose one and went in hard. I flattened myself beside it, and Provis hefted the pistol, kicked the lock in and peeped through. There was nobody there. We closed ourselves in and looked around. It was a long narrow store-room, filled with rack after rack of the same odd sort of pistol we had taken from the guardhouse.
'Thank God for that,' said Provis, pointing to a big instructional chart on the wall. T haven't been able to figure this peashooter.'
I got myself a pistol from the rack and we spent a few minutes familiarising ourselves with the weapon. It was a compressed-air action, with a tiny automatic recompressor in the handgrip, and the egg-shaped swelling was the magazine. It was called, the chart said, the Ball -005 Needle gun. The chart said it held five thousand tipped needles. I took another gun from the rack and following the instructions broke it open and shook some of the needles onto the long counter that divided the room. They were the size of ordinary household darning needles without the hole in the blunt end and with.a small dull bulge just behind the point. Provis picked one up and started scratching the swelling with his fingernail.
'Don't,' I said. The storeroom was also a shooting range, presumably for testing weapons. At one end of the sixty-foot counter was a pistol clamp, at the other end was a big metal box, inside which was a sort of three-dimensional target, a metal sphere the size of a man's head. 'Let's try it,' I said.
I went to the end of the counter, aimed and squeezed the trigger button. The gun hissed, the metal sphere disintegrated with a dull thud. Needles kept coming out until I released the button, exploding against the back of the steel box. I went and examined it. Each needle hit had blown a little crater almost clean through the inch-thick steel.
'Jesus Christ,' said Provis. 'Some peashooter.'
'I wonder what the range is?' I said.
'Two hundred yards,' said Provis. 'It's on the chart.'
'I'd rather have my own,' I said.
'What do you use?' he said.
'Kruger Hawkeye,' I said.
'You bloody fool,' said Provis. 'It's a one-shot, isn't it?' 'Let's move on,' I said.
There was still no one in the wide corridor outside. We moved on quietly around the bend past more doors, some of which we opened. They were mostly storerooms and they held enough rations, and equipment to fit out a small expeditionary force. Then we came to a stairway. For the first time I realised that the roof of the inner section was lower than the outside workshops which rose to the full outside height of the building. This hollow centre was two-storied, maybe three, I thought, remembering the size of the place.
So we went up carefully, flattened against each wall,'Provis taking care of the rear, me looking ahead. Upstairs was silence, too, and a honeycomb of smaller passages with many doors. We looked around and found we were in a complex of cramped living quarters. There were fifty double bunks in each long room, not up to current army advertising standards, but well capable, so far as I could estimate, of accommodating a few thousand troops for a short time. If,- of course, a few thousand troops were every likely to be needed in the middle of an electrical, factory.
Then we came out of the narrow corridors onto a gallery overlooking a wide, glass-domed open space, and the sudden blaze of light hit us back into the shadows. It was just as well, too, for the huge space beneath us was filled with activity. We crouched in the dark listening to the noise. Voices were droning, engines were revving and there was a dull, irregular thudding under it all. I crawled forward and risked a look. What I saw was more like group activity at a school hall than anything, except that the children were all grown up and the hall was bigger than Paddington Station. I beckoned Provis and we crept over to the side of the gallery. We stood back in the shade and watched.
There were about forty groups of men dotted about the place, some being lectured, others going through various sorts of exercise. The droning voice I had heard was coming from directly beneath us. It looked iike a geography class. The teacher had a map on an easel and was demonstrating with a pointer. The men in the group were all taking notes.
'Those are our Jerries,' I said. 'He's chatting them lip in German.'
'Can you understand?' said Provis. I listened for a while.
'Yes,' I said. 'German with a Welsh accent is difficult, but it's some sort of itinerary. Sounds like the briefing for a motor rally up through the Welsh Marches.'
Further over the hall, I saw where the dull thud was coming from. Another group of men were taking target practice. I could see the silvery flash of the needle guns, and yet another group were working, with what looked like a jumbo-sized version of the gun on a tripod.
The engine noises were coming from the far end of the hall, where about twenty' long, low, saloon cars were raked out from the wall. They looked pretty solid and very fast, though I was not able to make out what sort of car they were.
'What sort of cars are they?' I said.
'Nothing I've seen before,' said Provis. 'There's a suggestion of the Daimler to the line of them, but no Daimler I know about is built so solid as that.'
As we watched a whistle blew. The group nearest the line of cars exploded into action and raced towards them, two per machine. They certainly knew their stuff. Before the passenger had the door closed the cars were moving off fast, between thick yellow lines that marked a roadway around the hall. It made a lap of about four hundred yards, I reckoned, and the twenty cars fell into perfectly drilled line. It reminded me of nothing so much as an old wartime Spitfire squadron scrambling for action. The cars stopped. One of them was now right beneath us and the geography class stopped to watch. So did we. The car was a straight sports saloon, slightly larger than usual, and heavier looking, but of orthodox design. It looked fast and powerful and we had just seen its acceleration from a standing start. We had a slanting view into the front. The dashboard was bristling with dials.
Then the whistle blew again. And as we watched, curved metal sheets wound up over all the windows, solid at the sides, grilled for vision at the front and rear. There was another electrical whirring from inside and the rear half of the roof lifted to let emerge one of the jumbo-sized needle guns, which Started to revolve slowly like a radar cheese.
'Well,' said Provis, 'Gran Turismo tanks.'
'It's all very odd, isn't it?' I said.
Then the tanks went through their paces. Two guards lowered a contraption into the centre of the ring, from a gantry above, across the roof and retired to work a little switchboard from safety. And out of the box in the centre dropped a kind of science fiction clay pigeons. The needle guns on the tank squad all homed instantly on the coloured balls as they flew erratically in the air, and not one missed. They worked on sight, sound or light. Then a whistle blew and the tanks reversed perfectly, twice around the lap, at the same high speed, around fifty miles per hour, and parked themselves immaculately in the same raked slots from which they had come.
Provis grunted. 'If that stuff is' bullet-proof,' he said, 'and they're as fast as they look, those are the most dangerous motorcars in the world.'
I was just agreeing with him when my voice was drowned in the colossal gibberish of a Tannoy right by our heads. We fled back into the shadows.
'What's it saying?' said Provis.
'It's saying "Achtung," ' I said. 'Shut up and let me listen.' The thing gibbered on for minutes, vomiting out long sinister German words. Then it stopped. 'What did it say?' said Provis.
'Well, for a start, it underestimated you,' I said. 'It said we're both about six feet one.'
'I've been six-three since I was fifteen,' said Provis. 'What's up with them?'
'And they know we're in here somewhere, they found the goon in his cupboard. Everyone is to fall in and march to the outer workshops. They've cleared them of the ordinary workers. Then they're going to search the area.'
'Well,' said Provis. 'We'd better get out of their way.'
Down below, orders were barking, boots were clicking. Then the whole crowd marched off. It needed only the 'Horst WesseP striking up to sound like a scrapbook for 1936. Then the hall was silent. I poked my head cautiously up. The place was empty. But through the corridors behind us came short sharp shouts and the banging of doors.
'They're doing it methodically back from the entrance,' I said. 'Come on.'
The best way out is often up. It always is in films anyway. James Cagney, for instance, climbed every ladder he ever saw, when he was in the films. I looked up at the gantry that carried the tank target. It ran into a control booth high under the roof. And the way to the booth was along a catwalk under the glass. I followed it around until it met a ladder and I followed the ladder down to the floor. It passed the gallery and I waved Provis to follow me. We swung out onto the ladder and up around the roof to the booth. We were lucky. The booth was built against the glass dome and in its wall was a way out. We went.
The ledge outside was about a foot wide, easy to walk along. The only trouble was that the glass was hot from the day's sun. We edged along to the corner of the building, which was a little tricky to negotiate. The ledge stopped there, and we had to scrabble over hot glass, with nothing but a long, long drop beneath us. Nevertheless I closed my eyes and managed it. And Provis leapt after me like a big marmalade cat. I was a bit scruffy by then, but my big friend was as immaculate as when we had set off.
After about fifty more yards we got to one of the massive stanchions that supported the glass dome. The ledge widened to a comfortable six feet and stretched in under the concrete arch to make a sort of cave.
'Here we are,' said Provis. 'We'd better lie up for a while.'
He took his coat off, folded it neatly and hunkered down against the hot wall.
He waved expansively out to sea. 'That's Weston-Super-Mare over there,' he said. 'The tide goes further out over muddier mud than anywhere else on the coast. And those two rocks are the Holms. The flat one's called Flat Holm and the steep one's called Steep Holm.' 'That figures,' I said.
T swam to Steep Holm when I was a kid,' he said. 'Nothing there but gannets.'.
'Are you Welsh?' I said. 'You don't sound it.'
'Not really,' he said. T was born here though, just a couple of miles down the coast. Went to the Grammar School up the hill; and learned a few rugby tricks and nothing else. Then my old man was killed up on the Cowbridge Road. He was driving his boat home one evening and a drunk drove a charabanc right into him.'
'Into a boat?' I said..
'Yes,' said Provis. 'He used to drive a boat about. He did other things, too, mind you, plenty of them. He'd been six kinds of shopkeeper before I was born, an estate agent and a tallyman, but he never grew wool on his back. In the end he bought a couple of old buses just before the Western Welsh took over. He sold them at a ludicrous profit, but not before he had acquired a taste for internal combustion. So he bought an old Trojan lorry and a ship's whaler from a mate in the docks and knocked them together. It's a good job he never lived to see D-day or he would have been suing the War Office for infringing the patent of the Provis Mark 1 Amphibian.'
'Where did he drive it?' I said.
'Over the beach and into the sea,' said Provis. 'He used to fill up at the bus-stop by the ice-cream parlour and do a tanners-worth around Friar's Point and back. I used to take the money. When there were no passengers he would take me out on my own and tell me sea stories. That's where I learned about young Captain Morgan and about old Horace Nelson and the burning cakes of Wrath, and the real seafaring truth about Boadicea. Look down there.'
He waved down the Channel past Flat Holm and Steep Holm, out into the setting sun.
T used to believe it,' he said. 'The old man used to say the horizon is no more than five miles away, but bey ond it is another, and another and another. You can sail until you are superannuated. And when you get there, he would say, you will find pineapples and pomegranates and American ice-cream sodas and chinkle-eyed Chinamen. And gardens hanging high in the air and filled with more flowers than an alderman's funeral. And lands where the dinosaurs still walk in the High Street and great grinning lizards fly in the air; And the green glade where old Adam first pushed out the boat and set sail for us all.' 'Why did you leave?' I said.
'He got mashed up driving home,' said Provis. 'The boat was a write-off or I might havejeft school and carried on. As it was, I left school and went looking over the horizon.'
'Was it worth it?' I said.
'I'm back here, aren't I?' he said. 'The trouble was, he taught me a lot about the world. But he'd never been out of Glamorganshire, except once, to get gassed by British gas in France when he was fifteen. He was a great reader, you see. He read six books at a time, and nothing ever rnade sense until he had fused it into everything else he was reading. He had it all wrong. London, for him, was a thick fog of sin and pavements filled with little clockwork bears. And Rome was aland of high pomp and hungry lions, all subsiding like the Rhondda into tunnels below. Tahiti was a favourite place, too, all flaming volcanoes and Dorothy Lamour, dressed in birds of paradise and gulping jugged missionaries and breadfruit sandwiches. And Russia, of course, snow and salt and sex-mad monks and queens with bullets in their blouses and ants in their pants.'
'A bit of fun,'T said. T would like to have listened.'
'Maybe,' said Provis.. 'But he made abroad alive for me, full of colour and I couldn't wait to get there.'
'Did you?' I said,
'Yes,' said Provis. He scratched an armpit as big as the jaws of a lion. T did. And it was nothing like that at all. I took off when I was fifteen and went to India. It wasn't all just snake-charmers and bellydancers and yum-yum trees, like the old man said. It was all pox and no penicillin so I moved on to Singapore. And by my seventeenth birthday I was eating special fried rice and sleeping between Japanese blankets.'
'You got a good job?' I said-
•No,' he said. 'I was a big strong lad and I met a Eurasian fortune-teller in the Happy World. She was old enough to be my sister, but she was very pretty. It was the nearest thing I ever got to one of my father's stories. His favourite one, too.'
'Tell me,' I said.
'Oh,' he said. 'It Was just a silly story he used to tell me when we were chugging around the point on a calm evening. About when he was in Patagonia. He never went to Patagonia. He didn't even know where it was. He must have liked the sound of it.'
'There's an old Welsh colony there,' I said.
T know,? he said, 'but the old man came from Bradford. It's too long and too silly a story to tell you now. But you never know when you're fifteen.'
Provis looked down, his quiet blue eyes searching, it seemed to me, for an old sea-going lorry to come butting up the Channel. There was nothing in sight but a dirty British coaster, or maybe it was Welsh. His father sounded a good father to have known.
'And what happened to your fortune-teller?' I said.
'What?' said Provis. 'Oh, she took up with a Chinese and he put her on the game. I killed him. Then the Japs came and I took a couple of loads out of Singapore and up the coast. But it did them no good.'
'Did you fight in Malaya?' I said.
'No,' he said. T reckoned I was too young.'
'Me too,' I said.
'We all were,' he said. 'I repatriated myself. Well, as far as Marseilles, anyway. It all took a long time, and in fact, I didn't get back to England until forty-four. Largely because halfway through France I met your boss.'
'Who?' I said.
'The fat man,' he said.
'I thought he fought his war with a telephone and a scrabble board,' I said.
'No,' said Provis. 'He stayed behind in nineteen-forty to set up a group.'
T remember now,' I said. 'He called them the Thugs. Were you one of them?'
'Yes,' said Provis. 'It's a long story. But I got back in the end and I'd had enough of him by VE day, and since I'd never joined anything he couldn't keep me.'
'But you're still working for him,' I said.
'So are you,' he said. 'And my condition is that I never have to see him. I reckon it's about time we went, don't you?'
I looked around. Provis had talked the sun down and our corner of the roof was already in shadow. There was no special activity that we could see down below, and it looked asthough they had decided we had got away. It also looked a long way down.
'What the hell,' I said. 'Let's go back the way we came.'
Back down in the big drill hall it was quite dark. It was also very silent as we pussyfooted down the wall, but that didn't last. We heard the tramping of feet and the barking of orders.
'We'd better get out of here,' I said. 'They may be going to bed, but they may also be doing their second search.'
'You're the boss,' said Provis. 'Who's driving?'
'I'll drive,' I said and we dived into the nearest of the armoured Sports saloons. I looked at the controls. 'If possible,' I said.
There were two cramped seats inside and a straight dashboard with speedo and rev counter. There was a steering wheel, no gear-lever and only one pedal.
'Better you than me,' said Provis. 'Mine's labelled.'
He had a dashboard too, for the gimmicks. All the switches were labelled and he played them like a piano. The metal sheets slid up over the windows leaving a pattern of tiny holes for me to steer through. The back seat space was full of retracted needle gun. Provis pressed another button and it whirred up out of the roof. There was a sort of joystick trigger assembly in front of him and a viewplate that I would have liked myself. He fiddled the joystick a bit and the picture in the plate changed. It was some kind of a prism device geared to the gun. 'Let's go,' hesaid.
At least there was a starter button. So I pressed it and the motor whined like a jet.
'Right,' I said. 'I'll cross my fingers.'
I put a tentative foot on the lonely pedal and the heavy car moved, as dainty and obedient as a Lambretta, and with no more than a tiny heightening of the turbo whine of the motor. So I followed the thick yellow line round the shed trying to get the feel of driving through a grid of minute holes. It was like driving at night without lights for a few seconds, then I clicked in to the knack. In fact, the grid pattern had immaculately designed patterning, and as soon as my eye accepted it, I was getting almost as wide a view as if we were in a bubble car.
So I took the car faster, once more round the shed then up the wide covered roadway by which we had entered. It was lucky I was putting my foot a little more firmly down, for we met a squad of blacksuits coming round the bend. I think we hit two' or three, but the car was too solid to transmit the thuds. Then we were through the wall door and into the outer workshop, heading for the outside wall with the motor whirring and whining up the scale. The car accelerated like Fangio. Then we were through the wall. I took my foot off the pedal and felt for the brake.
There was no brake but the car stopped dead, nevertheless, half in, half out of the hole it had crashed in the wall.
'What the hell are you stopping for?' said Provis.
'Just getting the hang of it,' I said. I put my foot down again. We whined off down the road towards the gate.
'D'you think we can crash the main gate?' I said, 'It was pretty solid.'
'We'll just have to try, won't we?' said Provis.
So I pressed the pedal and the motor sang like silver virgins. In what felt like less than twenty seconds the' meter was showing ninety. We streaked at the gate like a comet and this time we did feel the impact. But we got through.
'Turn left,' said Provis, and I turned left. I almost turned over, too, but it was a sweet car for its weight and we made it.
'Christ,' said Provis, 'this tank is built like a tank. They'll be after us in a second, but I can watch in my gunsight and if they're not in sight when we reach it, turn into thejunkheap you'll see about a mile and a half down the road inside the docks. We'll be able to shake them.'
• By the grace of God, the road was fairly straight, for I still had a tendency to jog the pedal too fast, like an ordinary accelerator. It was getting us along in a spooky sort of highspeed stop-start like a democratic government. I was learning fast enough though. It was imperative that I did. By the end of the ninety seconds it took me to jerk us as far as thejunkheap I was handling the car at least as well as a lady driver.
'Here you are,' said Provis. 'And watch it. It's a ninety-degree right turn.'
I took my foot right off the pedal and swung the wheel. The car skidded round on the spot an unlikely four hundred and fifty degrees, which left me holding my breath, saying a prayer and pointing the way I hoped I was pointing.
'Well,' said Provis. 'That was bloody fancy.'
'Yes,' I said. 'It's a great car.' I tried to look as though I hated the idea of driving withoutrmy string gloves and I may • have fooled him. I think. Then, I purred the car up one of the narrow lanes through the dump. Provis switched the window shields down and let some air into the car. We got out, climbed .the mountain of metal above us and peered over the top of it in time to see three blacksuits on fat motor-cycles shoot past, closely followed by a car like ours.
'Good,' said Provis. 'That gives us a breather. Let's follow' them, eh?'
We scrambled down the junkheap. I backed the car out into the road and we proceeded amiably in a westerly direction past coal tips and graving docks as dark and deserted as they must have been in the bad old days before Llewellyn.
'Just follow the road,' said Provis. 'It brings us out well down the town, then straight up and over the hill into the country . .. Jesus Christ, the bastards are waiting for us. Torn round quick.'
We had just rounded the bend. The car like ours was slewed across the road and the blacksuhs were sitting on their motorcycles, waiting like Brighton coppers for a cushy nick. I did the fastest and the best three-point turn I have ever done and belted back the way we had come.
But the riders were up with us by the time we had turned, and the leader was level with the driving window. I looked at him and saw myself reflected in his goggles. He was riding single-handed-and his other hand was reaching inside his leather jacket for either a packet of cigarettes or a bloody needle gun. I put my foot down and drew ahead. Provis switched the window shields up.
'Put them back down on my side,' I said, and they whirred down again. I let the blacksuit draw level with me again and tried a trick I had seen in an old American film. I took a deep breath, pulled ahead a bit, took my foot right off the pedal, swung the wheel to the left, and put my foot back down! The tyres screamed, the motor screamed and so did the blacksuit. I had swiped him off the road and into the dock with my rear over-rider.
And I missed piling ourselves into the massive base of a coal tip by about four and a half inches.
'Where are the others now?' I said, when I had the car back in the middle of the road.
'All this time,' said Provis, 'they have been rolling along behind pumping needles into our arse. Thank God fox good Alleiec steel.'
'How far behind?' I said.
Provis fiddled with the viewplate of his gun.
'Three yards,' he said. They're very steady riders. Do something.'
So I tried a trick I had seen on the Great North Road where the big lorries are. I accelerated easily enough to keep them behind me, told Provis to hang on tight and took my foot right off the pedal. The car stopped like it had run into Cardiff Castle and we heard the crunch.
'There'll be a mess on the boot,' said Provis.
'Ah, well,' I said. 'It's nearly dark. No one will notice.' And I put my foot down again. The Alleiec driver behind us stopped,' not so much to help his mates as to shovel them off the road into the shadows. We whined up the dock road.
'Pilot me,' I said to Provis.
'When you reach the dock gates,' he said, 'you do a quick U-turn to the left. There's a steep hill straight ahead then, and after that it's flat into the town centre.'
The hill was very steep but the car went up without a quiver. The turbo motor, or whatever it was, was ludicrously powerful.
Then we started to see people and traffic and I had to come back to a respectable speed and the Allelec car got back onto our tail.
'Any traffic lights we can lose him at?' I said.
'Not in Barry,' said Provis. 'Not enough traffic. We're walkers down here. Look at all the bootshops. But just past the cinema down there, turn right and accelerate as hard as you can.'
So I lost speed as imperceptibly as I could and drew the Allelec car up closer to my tail. I hugged the nearside curb to look as though I was carrying on straight ahead, then when I got to my turning I swung the car right, and put my foot flat down. We almost took off, but it worked. The other driver overshot the corner and we were away.
Ahead of me was a long steep hill again. I shot across a couple of intersections dangerously fast and we climbed like a Caravelle.
'At the top,' said Provis, 'turn left and come straight back down the next hill fast.'
When we reached the top the Allelec car was in sight again, but a long, long way away and we made it. Soon we were back on the main road below, the docks black on our left, the shops bright on our right and nothing but a scrubby green bus behind us. And Provis piloted me through the town.
'If you press on,' he said, 'we'll have time for a couple of drinks at a pleasant club in Cowbridge. We have to go west. They'll be looking for us back towards Cardiff by now.'
'Well, wind down that bloody gun on the roof,' I said, and we whistled through the dismal west end of Barry and around the houses. Like almost everywhere, some kind of nut had been having his way with the roads. They were so safe it was practically impossible to drive. Each good wide road had been narrowed at the bends with jutting piers of bucolic brickwork, and only the sick red geraniums were saving me from piling us up at every corner. The roads were swollen with tiny roundabouts, too, like boils on a schoolboy's neck, designed to the turning circle of a London taxi or a Japanese clockwork jeep. And the whole town was poxed over with council estates and bristling with single-lane cul-de-sacs called Churchill Close and Attlee Avenue, but we got through it all in the end, with no beady eye down our back, out onto what Provis told me was a pretty piece of country, the small beginnings of the Vale of Glamorgan, filled, he said, with juicy clover, fat cows and buzzing bees.
'That sounds like one of your father's stories,' I said and started thinking about a big lager glass, filled with ice, four measures of whisky, and soda water up to the brim.
'Will there be food at this pub?' I said.
'Bread, cheese, home-pickled onions, Hancock's Ale and Red Hackle,' said Provis.
I increased speed. I like pub food. The big gin palace up at Swiss Cottage used to sell the most delicate Welsh rabbits in London, and the Wellington in the Strand slices ham thicker than a farmer's wife. The Windrush over Witney serves Scotch eggs of the size and weight of cricket balls and at one o'clock in the Amberley Inn high above Woodchester Priory, the cook brings free fried onion rings in batter as light and golden as the gates of heaven.
Betty, in the Hand and Racquet off Leicester Square, pickles almost everything with a touch of genius and the York Minster in Dean Street spread chefs pate into long crumbling Soho rolls. But you can't have everything. The bloody Bombay Bar in Brighton sells Cadbury's Roses chocolates and we never reached the Cowbridge pickled onions. High up on what Provis told me was the Windy Ridge above our destination, I found myself sandwiched between two Alleiec cars. They appeared out of the black night, one each side of me, and the first I knew of them was the sudden unnerving glare of headlights, switched on as they closed in.
'Good God,' said Provis. 'How the bloody hell did they get back onto us?' But I was.too occupied with my driving to care.. The wheel was bucking hard as the two drivers bounced me back and fore across the road like a tennis ball. Any ordinary car would have come clean off its springs in ten yards of the beating we were taking.
The cars were trying to get a neck ahead of me to squeeze'me to a halt and I was just about managing to keep abreast-of my problem, so long as I kept between them and the road stayed straight and clear. We did a couple of miles like this. Provis had got his gun out of the roof but had to give up fiddling with his joystick. The cars were too close. He was hanging on tight, cursing gently and begging for my pistol, but I was too busy.' •The road ahead, in the glare of the three sets of powerful headlamps was lit brighter and sharper than noon.
And way ahead I saw the road narrowed between jutting stone walls. They saw it too. And they worked well together. The nearside driver dropped back to give his mate room to sideswipe me off the road and into the wall. But he dropped back a little too soon and a little too far, and the extra feet of road he , left for me gave me the space to free myself from his mate. I accelerated sweetly into the narrows. I could have left it a fraction later myself and I might have drawn one of them into the wall, but this was no film, I was no stunt man, and anyway we had had no rehearsal. So they both stayed on my tail.
The road dropped away fast, down'into Cowbridge, and we all whined through the wide High Street. I wound round the back of a car and almost under the wheels of a bus and climbed-tip out of the town in a dying symphony of horns and shouts.
Back up high again, I settled down to getting ahead. Provis was telling me where we were, and where we were heading and how to shake our followers, but he should have saved his breath. By the time I had got about a hundred yards out in front, the headlamps were lighting up a solid great truck backed right across the road ahead, much too near. I took my foot off the pedal like hot clinkers but the road, was a glossy one and we slid along on locked wheels to bury our noses into the side of the truck.
'Out and over the hedge,' I said, for what it was worth.
It was worth less than nothing. We jumped straight into hard arms of a'squad of blacksuit goons who embraced us with what I took to be foetid Celtic fervour. When I came to, however, I heard them talking and realised my mistake. We had been embraced with efficient Teutonic relish. ■
We put up a bit of a show of course, and for a happy minute or two, Provis and I got back to back and laid about us like Alan Ladd and Van Heflin. But whether we like it or not, life is not all cowboys, and indians. In another minute we were down, and when the blacksuits started putting the boot in, we were out too. I then lost interest.
When I woke up things were black. I was lying flat on my back on a hard rumbling floor and I rolled over painfully against a boot. It kicked me.
'Gestookenderanglischerunffastenheimen,' said a voice, I think. Then a light flared, and while it lit a filthy foreign cigarette, I saw, through thick black legs, a circle of thick Nordic faces. Before the light went out, one of them bent down to look at me. I was glad to see that it was freshly battered and swelling fast. It said something beastly in German.
'God save the Queen,' I said. The same foot kicked me again, this time more personally, so I shut up, closed my eyes and listened to the roaring of the motor. If you find yourself blind in the back of a truck, it passes the time to plot the course by the revs of the engine, the shifts of the gear and the changes of direction that you will feel through the floorboards. If you know where you started from, that is.
For a while we went up and down and around gentle bends. We could have been anywhere in sinful South Wales. Then we slowed down and began grinding fitfully around a series of tiny roundabouts and I guessed we were rolling through Barry. It was all just a game, of course, and I could have guessed it in two. Either back to the Bendricks or straight to the horse's mouth at Castell Coch. Then I remembered I was not alone.
'Provis?' I said.
'Ouch,' he said, and so did I. German feet are hard.
And after a while gates clanged, voices mumbled and gears crashed. We jerked to a halt in front of Llewellyn's idiotic gothic seat, and hard hands grabbed me and threw me out onto the gravel. Provis landed on top of me. He rolled off and I started to get up, but a boot stood on the back of my neck and kept me down. Then more hands grabbed me and hauled me to my feet. A splutter of German told me I was about to be bashed. Two of them held me upright and the one with the bruised face stood back and licked his lips.
'Now, now, Heinie,' said a voice. 'Do it gentle.'
Heinie clicked his heels in disappointment and stood back.
'Do it gentle, see,' said Tonypandy Williams, 'Like this.' He backhanded my head almost off its shoulders.
'Yakee da,' I said, when the music stopped playing.
'There's a strong boy,' said Tonypandy. 'Always answering back isn't it? I'll be having you later.' He nodded to the goons who were holding me up and the others who were holding Provis. They frog-marched us up the steps and through tfca great studded door into the hall. The suits of armour still held their dim electric candles in their raised gauntlets and the dusty banners still hung in the murk above. It was just about twenty-four hours, I reckoned, since I had sneaked in there to eavesdrop. It seemed like weeks.
'Five years without you,' I said to Tonypandy, 'is like five minutes.'
'What's that you say, boyo?' he said.
'Five minutes without you,' I said, 'is like five years.'
'Nelson Eddy,' said Provis, from across the hall 'To Jeanette Macdonald.'
'Bitter Sweet?' I said.
'Rosalie,' said Provis, T think.'
'By God,' said Tonypandy, 'I'm going to have you. By God I am.' But he didn't hit me. Perhaps there was a house rule against brawling.
If there was, it had escaped Provis. Tonypandy should have put more than two goons onto holding him down. One of them suddenly sailed through the hall headfirst into a suit of armour. The other one got Provis's elbow in his guts and Provis's foot in his face.
'The door's open,' he said to me. 'Have a bash.'
'Right,' I said, and jack-knifed out of my handlers' hands. I came up behind them and banged their heads together. But German heads are hard too. One of them went down but the other stayed on his feet, clicked his heels and advanced. So I goosestepped right into his crutch and then there was one. But that one was Tonypandy Williams and he had had all the time in the world to pull his finger out, and with it, of course, his little silver needle-gun.
'I'll take him,' said Provis. 'You get on out of here.' So I dived straight out of the door into the rest of the troop, still formed into immaculate fours on the gravel.
When they marched me back into the house, Provis was lying on the floor with the two goons he had manhandled drooling over him.
'Take him away, Heinie,' said Tonypandy. 'Leave this one with me.'
The Germans hauled Provis to his feet. One of them loosed a stream of vicious, spitting gibberish.
'No, no, no, Heinie,' said Tonypandy. 'Speak proper, will you?'
'We will kill this swine'Englischer,' said the German in slow, uncertain and very sincere English.
'No, you won't, boyo,' said Tonypandy. 'Do what you like, but don't kill him, not till I teil you.'
The German grunted. But he clicked his heels, brushed the blood from his eyes and dragged Provis out of the door and away.
And by now I began to realise that there were more people around. Down at the end of the hall a door had opened and the bright light from within was silhouetting a crowd of heads, craning to see the commotion. One of the goons was standing the suit of armour back on its feet and clearing up the mess we had made. There were enquiring murmurs from the end of the hall. Then the lanky, ladylike figure of Ball the boffin shambled forward.
'What's happening, Williams?' he said. 'I left word for absolute quiet during my conference and here you are making as much damned noise as an isotronic feedback with unphased dampers.'
'Sorry sir,' said Tonypandy. 'We've had this trouble, see, with these snoopers you had down below.' Ball shambled up and peered at me. 'Where's the other one?' he said.
T gave him to the Heinies,' said Tonypandy. 'They took him back to the Bendricks.'
'Can they keep him this time?' said Ball.
'Oh, yes,' said Tonypandy. 'They'll keep him this time. He won't be feeling so spruce by now, he won't.'
'Good,' said Ball. 'You'd better keep this one fresh for Lord Llewellyn.'
'For the time being- only, I hope, sir,' said Tonypandy. 'Then I would like him for myself, if at all possible.'
'We'll have to see about that,' said Ball. 'For the time being, until Mr Fluck gets here, you'd better take him to Mr Sullivan.' Then he turned to the crowd at the end of the hall. There were six or eight people, I saw, most of them with drinks in their hands. T'm very sorry about this disturbance, ladies and gentlemen,' said Ball. 'It seems that Williams has caught himself a couple of intruders. It's a shocking thing that even down here in our own backyard, as it were, we can't feel free of the English criminal element. And we can't be too careful, of course. Lord Llewellyn's collection, as you know, is priceless, utterly priceless. But now, perhaps, while Williams gives these fellows into the hands of the police, we can get on with our business.'
He started to shepherd his flock back into the room, and at a nod from Tonypandy, my goons hustled me down the hall towards the staircase. Ball was clucking reassuringly and his flock turned to watch me. The silhouette of long legs and lean waist that had nagged me through the last minutes became Angie Thomas, Schneider's gorgeous secretary from Alleiec House. I should have expected her there, of course, but it was still a shock to see her bang in the middle of the spider's web.
Perhaps she was one of them. I crossed my fingers and hoped not.
She jumped when she recognised me and started, I think, to say something. I quickly looked away. When I looked over my shoulder, she had relaxed and was regarding me with a cool, impersonal curiosity that I hoped was feigned.
All the way up the stairs I argued with myself. And I won. She was much too gorgeous to be mixed up in whatever it was that Llewellyn was mixing up. Her legs were too long and her hair was too bright. I hoped.
Tonypandy led me and my shadows right around the first floor gallery. It was wide and lusciously furnished, leaving the gothic fancy-dress down in the hall for first impressions. It was also hung with about a million pounds' worth of Llewellyn's priceless collection, all the pictures I had expected to see back in Allelec House two long days before, all the lovely meat by the great Welsh master Rubens, round Welsh apples by old Dai Cezanne, and the dark foreign forests of Dewi Breughel.
Then they shoved me through a door and into a chair. Tonypandy took up his position behind me, the cold little muzzle of his gun pricking the back of my neck.
'You can put that away,' I said. 'After being punched up all the way from by Cowbridge to by here, I need to rest up a little, and I want to do it gentle.'
'Are you mocking me, then?' said Tonypandy, and started to walk around to my front.
'Leave him be for the moment, Williams,' said a voice from across the room. It was Sullivan, behind a big bare desk. He got up and walked over.
'Brock, isn't it?' he said.
'That's right,' I said. 'Wc met this afternoon, when you arrested me.'
T remember,' he said. 'I've been waiting for you.' He sounded friendly. 'What on earth were you going to Cowbridge for?'
'Bread and cheese,' I said. 'And a large drink.' T see;' he said. 'We were wondering. We had you plotted all the way, of course. All our cars have bleepers.' 'My mistake,' I said.
'Never mind, lad,' he said. 'It was your last one. Now, let's get down to business, eh? Just what were you and that big ape doing down at the Bendricks?'
'We told you,' I said, more for something to say. 'We were looking for a picture story.'
'Balls to that,' said Sullivan, still amicably. 'Between you and me, you got through a fair old helping of men and machines since teatime. This means a good deal of paperwork for me, and you'll just have to suffer for it.'
He smiled happily, first at me, then at Williams behind me. He got up from his chair and walked across the room to a tall, slender cupboard, another priceless Llewellyn piece. He unlocked it, opened the door and stood for a while, contemplating whatever he kept inside it.
'Mr Ball said to keep him fresh, sir,' said Williams. 'For Lord Llewellyn to speak to him.'
'Yes, Williams,' said Sullivan. 'And I expect you'd like him kept fresh for you, yourself, eh?'
'If at all possible, sir,' said Williams.
'Good,' said Sullivan. 'You have a personal interest in him, of course.'
'Yes,' said Williams. 'He bloody near killed me yesterday.'
T heard,' said Sullivan. 'In a pub in London, wasn't it? You should stick to Hancock's, Williams.' He came to a decision, took something from the cupboard and came to stand in front of me, his hands behind his back. He rocked back and forth on his heels, smiling merrily at me.
'Before the war,' he said, T was a schoolmaster. I had to give it up. Even in a big school, you see, after three years or so you've gone through all the types of boy you can hope for. No novelty after that, you see. So I took up security work. The pay is better, of course, and, by and large, there is more scope, but I often have hankerings for the old days.' He rocked back and forth in happy nostalgia. 'Yes,' he said, T often think back to the old days.'
He brought his hands from behind his back, and with them a thin schoolmaster's cane. He stood there, rocking and smiling and remembering and bending the cane in his hands.
'There's a good fellow, Williams,' he said.
Williams nodded to the two goons standing silently at attention by the door. They grabbed me and laid me across Sullivan's big desk. Sullivan frowned.
'Dear me,' he said. 'Take the lad's trousers down, will you?'
They stood me up again and pulled my trousers down around my ankles.
'Tut, tut, tut,' said Sullivan. 'His pretty string drawers as well, if you please.'
They laid me back over the desk. One held my arms, the other held my legs.
'This will hurt you more than it hurts me,' I said into the green leather desk beneath my face.
'A funny thing that,' said Sullivan. 'It never did. Perhaps that's why I never made a good teacher.'
Then the -cane whistled down. And there it was, the old feeling, still fresh after a quarter of a century's cold storage. The long, long second when you start to believe that it will not hurt at all. Then the sudden, immeasurable pain that takes the bottom out of your bowels. And the roaring in the head.
F did then what I always used to do. I bit my lip almost through and I gr<5und my face into the hard top of the desk. But it didn't help at all. He gave me twelve of his slowest and best, skilfully overlaying the strokes. I decided to kill him.
'Stand him up,' he said.
The goons brought me to my feet. I tried to blink the tears
from my eyes. I also tried to get at him, but my trousers were hobbling my feet and the goons had my arms twisted tight behind me. Sullivan was still smiling, now with a fleck of foam on his lower lip.
'You're a brave boy,' he said. 'And now you will behave yourself and tell m e what I want to know.'
'Get stuffed,' I said, through my tears.
'Put him back, Williams,' said Sullivan happily. 'There's a good fellow. I'll have to give him another dozen, I'm afraid.'
'Mr Ball did say,' said Williams.
'What's that?' said Sullivan. 'Yes, yes, yes. Well, you may be right. We must leave him for the headmaster.' He turned to me. 'Let that be a lesson to you, my boy. Now pull your trousers up at once.'
He watched me as I did so, then he gave his cane reluctantly to Williams. As soon as it was out of his hand, he clicked back visibly, out of the spanking, rollicking dogdays of yesteryear into the hard, heelclicking present.
'Right, Williams,' he said. 'Tidy him up and put him away upstairs until he's wanted. And tell Keiller and that other sadistic bastard to stand by. The chief may want him softened up.' Williams opened his mouth. 'No, I'll need you down at the Bendricks with me. They'll leave a bit of him for you.' He looked at me and smiled. 'Unless they're off form.'
Williams looked at the two Germans. 'There you are,' he said. 'Heard Mr Sullivan, you did. Jump to it, you Jerry bastards.'
He followed Sullivan out of the room. Both the Germans had their pistols out. They waved me out of the room and poked me around the gallery and up the next flight of stairs. There was music coming from down below, but no other sign of life.
Up on the second gallery they opened a thick door and kicked me inside. Then they slammed the door and locked it. It was very dark, but though they had patted me down for guns and knives, they had left me my lighter. It was an ordinary one, not one of Pusser Talbot's magic Ronsons, but at least it found me the light switch. I looked around my prison. Llewellyn did his prisoners proud, right down to the last Swedish splinter. There was no window at all, and no iced water piping out of the wall, but apart from that I might have been locked up in the London Hilton with a view of the Palace.
The bed was good British Dunlopillo and there was a big, blue, aerodynamic washbasin. Then I praised God, for standing there before me,.its neck towards my hand, was a full bottle of whisky, a syphon of soda and two handsome, heavy cutglass tumblers. So I took things in order. I stripped off all my clothes and hung them carefully in the big blond cupboard. I spread a towel on the floor and drenched myself carefully in cold water.
Then I took another towel and dried myself carefully. Then I poured a very large whisky, which I set carefully beside the bed. And I laid myself carefully down, and winced at the stripes on my buttocks.
Then I drank my whisky, poured myself another one, drank that and went out like a light.
Then I woke up. It may have been seconds later or it may have been hours. It was long enough for sweet dreams though. When I opened my eyes, I realised that what they say about dreams may well be true. That they all happen in the split second before waking.
Angie was in the room. What had woken me was the touch of her hand on my naked body as she covered me with the counterpane.
SHE was wearing a nightdress with a dolly dolly wrap, all very Grecian.
'A funny thing's going to happen to you on the way to the Acropolis,' I said. She put her finger to her lips. But she did not. smile. She just looked at me. And after a while, she whispered.
!Did you?' she said.
'Did I what?' I said.
'Come down here to steal Llewellyn's Giotto for some American collector?' shesaid.
'Is that what they told you?' I said.
'Yes,' she said. 'They said you have tried before and they were expecting you this time.' 'No,' I said. T didn't.' 'But they know your name,' she said. T told them,' I said.
'You were snooping around up in London,' she said. 'Did you tell them you knew me?' I said. 'No,' she said. 'Not yet.'
She went on looking at me, trying to make up her mind. I started to feel uncomfortable. Her level gaze was as'disconcerting as her long legs. I hitched the counterpane further up my bare chest, but I felt at no less of a loss.
'Are yon a thief?' said Angie again.
'No,'I said.
She made up her mind. 'Right,' she said. 'Tell me what it's all about.' T can't,' I said. 'You'd better,' she said.
'No,' I said. 'In the first place, I don't really know myself. And in the second place, well, never mind.' Th the second place, what?' she said.
'For Christ's sake,' I said. 'You may be one of them. How the hell do I know?'
_ This made her angry. 'You'd better make up your tiny advertising mind, then,' she said in a whisper that should have frozen me solid. But I was an ordinary man and I felt as hot as any other ordinary man in the face of so gorgeous a slice of angry woman.
'My,' I said, hoping to restore my balance. 'Thou lookest beauteous in thy wrath.' 'What?' she said.
'That's Charlton Heston for gee, you look cute when you're mad,' I said.
'Stop playing the fool,' she said. 'And tell me what it's aH about. I don't believe you're a thief and I didn't come sneaking up. here and sweet-talking that creepy German just to play
games. And hurry up. He'lf be back in a minute or two.'
'Right,' I said. It was my turn to make up my mind. Not altogether though. I glossed over the reasons I had for snooping around and concentrated on the story of my harsh treatment in London and the odd contents of the middle of the Bendricks.
She seemed to believe me. If I was wrong, though, and she turned out to be just a tasty piece of Llewellyn's hotpot, I had told her nothing that would be news to him. She agreed with me that it was all very strange. But her overall view of the situation was that there would certainly be a simple explanation of everything, and that I was a big, stupid fool and had got myself into a lot of trouble through reckless, masculine pique.
In fact, she was getting quite angry with me again, all in whispers of course, when I moved position in the bed to pour myself another drink. I winced from my caning.
'What's the matter?' she said.
'Nothing,' I said. 'Just stiff.'
But she turned me over and stripped the counterpane from my buttocks. Women are just not like us. My whole hair-raising story of secret hide-aways and German stormtroopers and armoured cars and beatings left her cold. But at the sight of twelve blistering stripes on my backside she did a smart about-face and immediately believed the whole thing.
'How does this prove anything?' I said.
'I hate kinks,' she said. 'Who did it?'
'Sullivan,' I said. 'He runs the security down here.'
'I know him,' she said. 'He wants to take me into Cardiff tomorrow.'
'Well,' I said. 'You'd better stuff an exercise book down your pants.'
T hate vulgarity, too,' she said. 'How can I help.'
This stuck me a little. I needed help like the little lemmings need waterwings but I was still unsure of her. So instead of giving her the fat man's number in Addison Road, I told her to try to contact Inspector Reece, the little Welsh horsefly in Cardiff. If she belonged to Llewellyn, they would get nothing from that, but Reece ought to twig enough to get through to the SX clearing house at least. She said she would try, and she hitched her ritzy toga around her ritzy curves.
'Have a drink before you go,' I said, reaching for the whisky.
'No,' she said. 'Nor you. You've been breathing filthy whisky over me ever since I got here.'
But she gave me a quick kiss before she left, her nose wrinkling at the fumes. Then I remembered. She was a gin girl.
She floated to the door, coaxed it silently open and poked her pretty nose through the crack. Then she looked back at me, smiled, and slid away. What a gorgeous girl. I lay back and indulged myself.
There are girls and girls and girls. Some of them are pregnant
but most of them are smart. Some have blonde hair like Japanese silk and some cleave like the mouth of hell. Some have flat bellies and some do not and some are so round they are almost square. Some have soft voices, cow's eyes and small, spherical heels and some are as wild as strong horses.
Some walk like swans afloat, some dance like drunken Zulus and some lie still as oysters at the bottom of the sea. Some fighi before they surrender and some surrender before they fight and some start as they mean to go on. Some, I remembered, even sleep with their husbands.
For Angie, though, the whole girlie bit was unnecessary. She was not like them and not like us. She was like the white light of early morning, before the hot sun schmalzes up the scene.
It was all very pleasant until I remembered myself. Then I remembered Provis and what the bastards might be doing to him down the hill. Still, he was a big boy and, as he said himself, he had seen very little action in Cardiff for his money. And Williams had told them not to kill him. So I put him out of my mind until I could do something about it and tried to find something to do.
I got up and tried the door. It was well oiled and silent but as soon as I had it opened a crack, a big, hairy hand shot through and shoved me back across the room. I don't know where I had hoped to go, anyway. I hadn't even got my clothes on. So I put out.the light and lay down again, and after a while I dozed off.
Then there was a noise in the corridor outside. I sat up on the bed in the dark. The door slammed open, light streamed in and with it a figure that flew across the room and landed on me. I twisted over, got it beneath me and by the throat. I raised my hand to chop. The door slammed shut and we were in the dark again.
As my hand started down of its own accord, I realised that the throat I was gripping was too soft. So was the body on which I was lying.
'Put the light on,' said a voice.
I didn't let go of the body, but now there was some pleasure mixing in with my precautions. I reached out for the lightcord and pulled it. And I found that I was lying on Angie. The white light of early morning in a room without windows. I reached out for the cord to switch the light off again, but I saw that she was bruised and her dolly white gown was torn. I jumped off her.
'What happened?' I said.
She rubbed the side of her neck.
'They watched me leave your room and waited until I had started to telephone Cardiff,' she said. 'Did they hurt you?' I said.
'Not very much,' she said. 'I struggled a bit. Sullivan told them to take me up to his room, but another man, a new one with golden hair, told them to lock me in with you. The guard was a bit rough on the way up, that's all.'
Ill
Ts he out there now?' I said. T expect so,' she said.
I looked at the long bruise on her neck and the red scratch that followed the tear in her gown down to her breast. I walked to the door and banged on it.
After a while it opened, and a big goon stood in front of me. I said my four-lettered say. Then I said it in German. His pistol moved up. I sidestepped, slashed it to the floor and smashed him in the face. But there were two more of them. One put his foot in my stomach and, with humiliating indifference, shoved me back across the room. The door slammed shut and the lock clicked like a fullstop.
'What good did all that do?' said Angie from the bed. 'You raving lump of beefcake.'
'Simple satisfaction,' I said, and ran the tap over the end of a towel to bathe her bruises. Her hairdo was a little wild too, so I went to the cupboard for my comb. It was in my jacket, which reminded me that I was wearing no clothes. And that reminded me of something else again. It is not true about nudists. So I covered my embarrassment with the towel and knotted the damp end around my middle.
She was watching me with a flicker of amusement taking the edge off the worry in her eyes. There was no panic there, though, and no fear. What a gorgeous girl. She mended her bright black hair, and. despite the wear and tear, she was now looking as smooth and juicy as a ladies' directory. The rent in her gown was very chic too.
'What happens now?' she said.
'Nothing,' I said. 'We just wait. We follow our nose when there's somewhere to go. What's the time?* 'It's about four,' she said.
'Then we try to sleep,' I said. 'Nothing will happen until morning.'
'Right,' she said. Til try. Good night.' She turned over and slid between the sheets. 'Put the light out,' she said. 'There's only one bed,' I said. 'Chair,' she said. 'Too small,' I said. 'Carpet,' she said. 'Too hairy,' I said. •O, well,' she said. 'What the hell.'
But she didn't say that until after I had slid into the bed too.
I lay still and breathed deep and after a while I thought she was asleep. But she murmured.
"That towel is damp,' she said. 'Take it off. It will give us rheumatism.'
And that was the last thing that either of us said that made any sense at all.
Perhaps it often happens. But I doubt it. You go to sleep new lovers and you wake old friends. Anyway, be it as it may, by and large, all things considered, taking the rough with the' smooth, leaving no stones unturned and all avenues explored, this was how we woke. I switched on the light, looked at her and kissed her awake. My watch was in my pocket in the cupboard and there were no windows, but I felt like the early sun was streaming into the room and gauze curtains were fluttering in a tiny silver breeze. She opened her eyes and smiled.
'Hullo,' she said. We took a long, lovely time to wash and brush up.
Then a key clicked in the lock and the door opened. Angie wrapped her wrap around her and Itook up a wet and dripping position like a king penguin about to protect its mate. And for the first time in my life I felt very sincere about it. It was all in vain.
Tonypandy Williams came in, a sort of a smile cracking the slagheaps of his face. "He stood by the door while one of his goons thumped a loaded tray onto the dressing table, and another flung a leather suitcase onto the bed. There were two more goons in the corridor outside, both With little pointing pistols, and for all the smile on his ugly face, Williams was stroking a big black cosh eagerly.
He had tiny black eyes, like the little bits of cold stone they used to put in with the coal. When they took in Angie they glinted red. When they took in me they sniggered.
'Well, there's big you are,' he said. T hope you took advantage. Last chance ever, isn't itT
He waited for a moment, hoping I would do something. But there was nothing to do. I just stood there feeling stupid. He waved at the food.
'A hearty breakfast,' he said. 'Same as having it downstairs, it is, with his Lordship's compliments.'
I picked up the towel from the floor and wrapped it round me again.
'That's better,' said Williams. 'More respectable you look, now. Don't want to frighten Blodwen over there, do we?' He waved his goons out of the room and followed them. Then he paused at the door and looked back. 'Make the most of it now, both of you. Later than you think, it is. Lord Llewellyn himself will be wanting to see you when he is ready, so make yourselves tidy, isn't it?' And the door clicked shut.
Angie sat on the bed. 'Ugh,' she said. Tm afraid of him.'
'Have you ever met Llewellyn?' I said.
'I've only seen him from a distance,* she said. 'And his pictures in the papers, of course. They say he won't have women near him.'
'That's far from true,' I said.
'When he's working, I mean,' said Angie. 'What do you think is happening here?'
'God knows,' I said. 'He's either right off his fat Welsh nut, or he's playing very big indeed.'
'Or both,' she said.
'Yes,' I said. 'Or both. And if he has gone addled, he can cause more bloody chaos than George Woodcock.'
'Go on,' she said. T know Allelec is big, but it doesn't all depend on him. What Schneider always says is, nobody's indispensable. It won't all fall to pieces, you know. And even if it did, so what? He only makes hair-dryers and such.'
'He makes a lot more than that,' I said. 'And people certainly have a habit of getting killed around him.'
'Nonsense,' said Angie. 'We'd know about it.'
'I do know,' I said.
'How?' she said. So I told her, about the fat man, and the group in Addison Road, and how I got onto Llewellyn in the first place.
'Well,' she said. 'A secret agent. Let me see your little silver greyhound or whatever.'
'I don't have one,' I said. 'All I have is this.' I took my little tin tag from my pocket in the wardrobe.
'That's a credit card from Austin Reed,' she said. 'Are you having me on?'
'Look,' I said. 'You are the most gorgeous girl I ever met and I am in love with you like I've never been in love before.' 'That,' she said, 'I will accept.'
'Good,' I said. 'But please don't carry the cool too far. You'll get frostbite. And take my word for it, now I'm beginning to believe it myself. Llewellyn, addled or not, is doing something horribly big.'
'Like what?' she said. 'Pressing a button and switching off all those hair-driers?'
'It may well be,' I said. 'And he could do it, too. He has a lot more going for him than even all of Allelec' I told her what I had learned from Greene's dossier, back in Addison Road.
'So what do we do?' she said.
'We get dressed,' I said. 'And eat that hearty breakfast.'
'Belay that,' I said. 'We eat that hearty breakfast, then we get dressed.' So we ate and drank as though we were on an illegitimate weekend at the Grand Hotel, Brighton, with a long day of jellied eels and chalky cliffs ahead of us.
'Do you take sugar, Mrs Smith?' I said.
'No, Mr Smith,' she said. 'I'm slimming.'
'You could have fooled me,' I said. And she wrapped her wrap tighter and fooled me some more.
The suitcase on the bed was hers and while I shaved with her tiny razor, she fiddled with her bottles and tins. There were a lot less of them than most girls carry, I was glad to see, and they added up to a lot more. My trousers were a bit crumpled from all the brawling so I put them under the E>unlopillo and lay on them while she took her hair apart and did it properly with* her own comb and a sweet-smelling spray gun.
It was a happy little domestic scene, and by that, I do not mean to say, not with her padding around the room in long legs and short pants, that I felt like we had been married for years. I simply mean thatl felt domestic.
T wonder when they'll come for us,' she said.
'Perhaps Llewellyn is going to give us lunch,' I said. 'Or a party. There was to be a party on Friday.'
'That's today,' she said.
'So it is,' I said. 'Time flies.
'It's dragging a bit at the moment,' she said.
'Come here,' I said. And she did. What a dish.
Then she continued her coiffure, and rummaged in her suitcase.
'-I've got a white thing here,' she said. 'Or a black.'
'Wear the black,' I said. 'We might dirty it before the day is out. With any luck.'
So she wore the black, a fragile, high-necked sweater that clung like a miracle, a slim black skirt, black silk stockings and dreamy black shoes.
'Get dressed,' she said. 'I'm ready to follow your nose.'
'Not unless you're the original india-rubber wonder,' I said. But I got dressed and we mooched away the time somehow. I was putting on the carefree' bit to keep her from worrying. Or was she putting on the carefree bit to keep me from worrying. Anyway, it worked.
Then, at last, the door opened. Williams and his goons had come for us. A clock somewhere chimed twelve as they jerked us out of the door.
"This way,' he said. 'Lord Llewellyn wants you now, isn't it?'
I squeezed Angie's hand in mine and we fell in between the goons and Tonypandy Williams, who was still smiling. I think. As we marched around the gallery, I looked over the edge of the woodwork. There was nobody down in the hall. I could have vaulted over, I suppose, but there was no horse waiting there on the tiles, and anyway, I had no parachute. So I just clung to Angie's firm, dry hand and whistled the Bells of Aberdovey. Welsh is infectious, like-dysentery.
'If it helps,' I whispered to Angie, T did come to pinch his priceless pictures. You were just a joint I was casing. Be as cross as you like.'
We all marched down the stairs .in perfect step, wheeled smartly left, to mark time outside a red leather door, just like the ones in Allelec House. Llewellyn's own, obviously. Or else an elevator to the flinty bosom of a. Welsh Methodist heaven up above the mountains.
Williams gingerly opened the door and cringed in. Then he came back, took out his pistol, dismissed the goons and drove us through the door. He stood us in the middle of a huge room and retired to the far end, where he took up an unobtrusive position in an artistic niche in the wall.
The room was as fat. and as lush as the Vale of Llangollen.-We stood kneedeep in carpet facing a long shallow window that ran the length of the room, looking out over the town below and making a spiky frieze of the queer shapes of the Bendricks, the cranes and.tips of the docks beyond and the plaster mountains of the scenic railway down by the pleasure beach. The window was open and on the breeze coming from the sea we could hear the gigantic juke-box whisper of Nat King Cole singing the dodgems round their track. The sun sparkled the Bristol Channel, a seagull screamed and Llewellyn spoke.
'Good morning, Mr Brock,' he said.
We turned away from the window. Llewellyn was sitting in a great carved chair that looked too splendid to be real, at the far end of the room. He sprawled in huge ease, one leg crooked, one elbow taking his weight, the other huge fist gripping the arm of his thrbne-like chair and pushing his massive shoulder up like a mountain. He was big as poor Provis.
'Good morning,' I said.
'Sir,' he said. 'Address me as sir. For the moment' 'Why?? I said. 'Are you expecting some sort of elevation?' 'If that should happen, — mm?' - he said. T doubt if you will be present to appreciate it. And my advice - mm? - which is invariably worth following — mm? — is to start as you will be forced to go on. Respectfully.'
He shifted his formidable weight on to the other elbow. This meant transferring something like eighteen stones, I reckoned, but the throne did not creak. He rested his chin on his knuckles, in the style of the Hollywood Caesars, and began a long observation of me. He seemed to be completely unaware of Angle's presence. This annoyed me.
I hate being looked at, anyway. Not that it disconcerts me, I think. It is simply that, while I have learned to live with my punched-up, ill-used, under-privileged features, I have also learned that, like almost everything else I have to live with, they do not stand up to close inspection. Neither, though, did Llewellyn's smooth well-used, over-privileged jowls, and my eyes began to wander, respectfully.
Behind him, taking up the whole height of the wall, was a great dazzle, the size of a Bisto poster. In flaming golden words on a loud green ground, it said, Beware of Walys, Criste Jhesu mutt us kepe That it make not oure childes childe to wepe.
Llewellyn watched me read the great golden words. Then he turned to look at them himself.
'A litde more advice, Mr Brock, — mm?' -he said. 'But I fear you have come upon it too late for profit.' The voice was strong and deep and musical, a voice that launched a billion volts. I wondered where it was going to launch me. Still, it was all a little more civilised than upstairs with Sullivan. Llewellyn continued. 'Like many of your unheeding, short-sighted countrymen — mm? — you may not be aware of these lines. They were written more than five hundred years ago, Mr Brock, after the victories of a great ancestor of mine. Owen Glendower, mm? The lines continue, Mr Brock, with more unheeded advice.
He stood up. I was wrong. He was bigger than poor Provis. His ridiculous carved throne was raised on a platform, too, and he towered over us like a well-fed Messiah. 'Men have been feared of this rebellion,' he said. 'Look well about, for God wot, we have need.'
For a moment he stood above us, looking far into nowhere, then he relaxed and sprawled back into his throne. It looked less ridiculous now, I thought, with his deep voice still echoing in my ears. He resumed the normal tycoon arrogance with which he had welcomed us.
'Ah, well,' he said. 'That is advice for others, - mm - ? You are out of the running.'
I caught myself nodding agreement. His curious habit of punctuating his speech with a throaty, interrogatory grunt was getting at me. It was a simple hypnotic trick designed to carry along an audience, but it combined with the vast physical presence and the laser-beam eyes to make a very formidable man. Llewellyn was the archetypal leader-figure with ail the text-book leader-qualities, including, I remembered from the dossier back in Addison Road, the capacity for gigantic self-indulgence which separates the leaders from the led. I made a tiny resolution with myself. No more nodding.
So I looked around me. Beneath the long window that looked down over the glistening roofs of Barry ran a polished table set with objects and manuscripts and old leather books. Llewellyn came down from his throne and walked to the window.
'Yes, Mr Brock,' he said. 'Come and look. Why not, - mm - ?
— Come and see the history of Wales.'
I moved towards the table. Tonypandy Williams whistled out of his niche but Llewellyn whistled him back again with a flick of the finger and picked up an ancient longbow, reamed by the centuries. He held it delicately, balanced in one huge hand.
'This bow,' he said, 'slept for six hundred years in the stone wall of a Carmarthenshire cottage, laid there by a Welsh archer back from Cr6cy.' He turned to face me. 'And neither were Welshmen asleep on Crispin's day, Mr Brock. Fluellen - mm? —was not alone.'
I nodded, before I remembered not to. 'The longbow was a great English weapon,' I said. 'It is possible that some Welshmen learned the skill.'
'No, Mr Brock,' said Llewellyn. 'You are wrong. The longbow was a Welsh weapon. The so-called yeomen of old England
- mm? - were Welsh. Welshmen fought at Falkirk and at Bannockburn, in Germany and in France. Welshmen were the professional soldiers when your poor English peasants were scrabbling for acorns to feed yourselves. Your Black Prince, Mr Brock, you crowned Prince of Wales — mm? — so that we would fight your English battles.' He put the longbow gently back into its place in Welsh history, and looked down over the town. 'But not all Welshmen were deceived,' he said. 'There were men like Owain of Wales who came back out of France with a dream of Welsh independence-mm?'
This time I did not nod my head. I knew a little history too. 'He got no nearer with his dream than the beaches of Guernsey,' I said. 'Some dreamer.'
'A man must fail,' said Llewellyn, 'for another to succeed.' He moved down the table past weapons and crumbling leather books and glass-cased manuscripts, touching them, as he passed, with a sort of proprietorial reverence. 'And so many have failed - mm? - success must be near at hand.' He took a parchment in his huge hand. 'Look, Mr Brock, this manuscript is the Gododdin of Aneirin in his own hand. The story of the great Mynyddawg Mwynfawr who went out into England to conquer Catraeth. And this, the writing of St Illtyd who taught Dewi Sant himself, before the churches of England were built. The heroic age - mm? - of the Welsh saints.'
This I could nod to and did. He moved on and opened a great leather volume to show gleaming pictures and the flow of gilded calligraphy. 'Here are the old Welsh songs,' he said, 'of Hywel the Good, and Owain Gwynedd, and the building of the great dyke, Clawdd Offa.' He turned again to face me with burning eyes. 'Offa's Dyke, Mr Brock, built by the kings of England- mm?- not to pen us in, but to keep us out.'
'He closed the book gently. 'And all the songs of my mighty ancestors,' he said. 'Llewelyn, the first Prince of Wales, and Glyndwr himself.'
He picked up a tiny stone, carved to a face and rubbed by many hands almost back to the pebble it had once been. 'This is the face of Giraldus Cambrensis,' he said. 'Gerald of Barn-, the great scholar of Wales, of the old Tewdwr family, as I am myself. And I say now what he wrote then, that I doubt not this race of mine be brought low by English arms. But the wrath of man will never destroy it. No other race than this, no other tongue than this of Wales, will answer in the great Day of Judgment for this little corner of the earth.'
Life was getting kookie. I knew perfectly well that the words he spoke were eight hundred years old, but Llewellyn had seemed to grow even bigger as he spoke them, and when he stopped he left a bigger silence than before.
Then, just as he had done after he quoted from the flaming banner behind his throne, he came back to the present again. He moved on.
'Come,' he said. 'See more of the history of Wales.' He showed me nineteenth-century relics of the Rebecca Riots, the tinder boxes and knives of the arsonists, petticoats saved from a raid, a letter, even, from Rebecca from which he read. 'It is a shameful thing for us Welshmen,' he began, 'to have the sons of Hengest have dominion over us.'
'Rebecca is no proud figure of your past,' I said, before he got to the ranting stage again. 'Why did he have to hide behind the petticoats of his womenfolk?'
'We like a joke, Mr Brock,' he said. 'We may even persuade you, yourself, to furnish us with a laugh or two before the day is done,-mm?'
'How?' I said.
'Something will occur to us,' he said. He picked up a wooden carving. 'This marks the end of your lesson in Welsh history.' he said. He held the thing cradled in his hand. It was roughly carved and crudely coloured and I had seen it before, both in Castell Coch and down on the ship at the Bendricks. It was a red bull's head. Bleeding hearts were impaled upon each horn.
'What is it?'I said.
'Another of our little jokes,' he said. 'It was the badge - mm? of the Scotch Cattle, who were not Scotch at all, of course, but bands of loyal Welshmen who fought a hundred years ago to drive out the English owners and the Irish blacklegs.'
He weighed the carving in his hand.
'Now it is my badge,' he said.
llewellyn laughed. 'I will not apologise for the lecture, Mr Brock,' he said. 'The reports have described you as durable - mm? — and, of course, you have all the time in the world, eh?' He laid his wooden emblem on the table and looked back along a thousand years of Welsh history.
'In your unexplained perambulations through my various premises,' he said, 'you will have encountered the type of person I find myself compelled to use. You will understand that I rarely seek the company of my staff.' He laughed again and looked at his watch. 'Well, Mr Brock, with all the time you have left to you at my disposal, you will not mind waiting while I eat and drink.'
He flicked his finger again and Williams started to prepare a small table in an alcove. Llewellyn had ignored Angie, quiet beside me, and he continued to do so. Then the door opened and the meal came in. It was not the chimp-chinned bunny I had expected, with the red flannel drawers. The trolley was wheeled in by a blacksuit. Llewellyn seated himself at the table. I stood there in the middle of the carpet feeling foolish.
'Just a simple Welsh meal,' he said. 'A clear leek broth, such as the Tudors drank. Then Carmarthenshire trout from the Taru Pool followed by good Cardigan mutton, - mm?'
The simple Welsh meal came on simple Italian silver and the broth was as clear as a fine hock. It was steaming, too, and my mouth watered. Llewellyn emptied the bowl, dissected his trout and wolfed it expertly before he turned to the thick-slices of almost raw mutton.
T do not know yet, Mr Brock, what you are doing here,' he said between mouthfuls. 'But let me advise you. Do not tell me that you are here to steal. You are a violent man - mm? - and a mercenary man - mm? - and, I am sure, a stupid man-mm?— but you are not, I think, a thief.'
_ I took a deep breath. 'All right,' I said. 'It all sounds too simple, I suppose, but this is it. I am an advertising man in search of a job. When I saw your man Schneider, your goons beat me up and got me angry. I have simply been following my nose ever since.'
'Yes,' said Llewellyn. 'I know of that incident. You say you were seeking a childish revenge? If so, you have certainly had your money's worth. I am told that you have already disposed of eight of my men besides injuring many more and causing considerable damage in the process.'
'All right,' I said. 'You have me now. Call the police and let's call it a day.'
'No,' said Llewellyn. 'You are, of course, lying. You may or may not be an advertising man as you claim to be. But you started the journey you have now ended from a certain house in Addison Road.'
'And since you know that,' I said, 'you will also know that I will soon be missed. My friends will follow me here. Unless, of course, you release me, and the girl as well, before this silly game goes further.'
Llewellyn was as bored and disinterested as a bank clerk.
'The men who sent you and the reasons for which you came,' he said, 'are matters of complete indifference to me. You may possibly live long enough to learn why this is so. The girl, however, concerns me more. You, Mr Brock, are merely some kind of snooper, public or private, and whatever you may have learned in the past few days has not been passed on. The girl has been in my employ for some time. And I understand that she falsely represented herself as of Welsh nationality.'
'I didn't,' said Angie, speaking for the first time. Llewellyn looked at her, also for the first time.
'The girl had better know,' he said, 'that my intercourse with women is invariably confined to one type only. I do not wish her to speak.'
'The girl has nothing to do with anything,' I said. 'I met her in London and when she saw me being manhandled last night she tried to help me. Nothing more. I give you my word.'
'Your word, of course, is worth nothing to me,' said Llewellyn. 'The girl attempted to telephone the police. I must dispose of her.'
'If you harm her,' I began to say, and Llewellyn stopped whatever fruitless threat I had been about to make.
'She may well be harmed,' he said, 'before she dies. Put her out of your mind, Mr Brock.'
I can't do that,' I said. 'You gibbering Welsh nut.'
Williams squared up to hit me but Llewellyn shook his head. 'You disappoint me,' he said. 'I am aware, of course, that you— mm? - used the girl during the night. But I had hoped that you were a realist about such things.'
He finished his meat and settled back in his ch air. 'She is a pretty enough plaything, but you must put her from your mind. She is not only expendable, she is already spent. You too, of course, are expendable. But not, perhaps, yet. It is for you to decide.'
He looked at Williams, who clicked rigid. 'Outside Williams and take the girl with you. If I call, you will know what to do.' Williams went out, dragging Angie with him.
'What in Christ's name are you talking about?' I said.
He looked at me. 'Soon,' he said, 'you will learn to address me as I wish to be addressed. It will be a painful lesson, I am afraid, but a lasting one. What I am talking about, however, is a tiny ray of hope for you, perhaps temporary, possibly per-
manent. The fact is, Mr Brock, that I rather like you.' 'Christ,' I said.
'You are something of a daisy,' he said. 'The reports I have had offer no evidence of any intelligence, of course. But this is a commodity which I can buy when and where I need it. Your qualities, such as they are, are more rarely to be found. Like the humble daisy after the bull has walked upon it, you spring upright again. Like the slender bamboo, Mr Brock, you bend in the wind. But you do not break.'
'And though we travel far and wide,' I said, 'the fairies whisper sweet and make the whole world sparkle with the Stardust on their feet.'
'What?' he said.
'Patience Strong,' I said. 'I am springing painfully upright like the slender daisy in the wind.'
'I dislike this adolescent facetiousness intensely,' he said. 'I shall have it beaten out of you.'
'You sound as though you are making me an offer,' I said.
'I am,' he said.
My father taught me at his knee never to say no, for a refusal may offend. Whatever it is, he used to say, accept it at once and then, if necessary, reject it at leisure. I have always tried to follow this ridiculous advice and to teach it to the wives of all my friends. It never got me anywhere, of course, but I have always enjoyed the effort.
'I accept,' I said. 'What is it?'
Llewellyn shifted in his chair. T told you,' he said, 'that I am not altogether proud of the sort of people I must use. They are necessary to my purpose but that is all. I will employ you. I have watched you for an hour. You are no great brain, it is true, but you are resourceful, aggressive and durable. You are apparently well trained in violence and you are probably mercenary.'
'I am inclined to agree with you,' I said.
'Good,' he said. 'Williams will watch you, so be warned. I am told that all his worldly ambition is focused down to the hope of having you to himself for an hour. But he will not harm you until I allow him to do so. Remember that. His native talent -mm? - has been considerably sophisticated by contact with some of the more experienced Germans we have been importing.'
'What's it all about?' I said.
Llewellyn dislodged a lump of Welsh mutton from his big, sharp teeth. 'You will know,' he said, 'that I am concerned with electrical power?'
'Everyone in the world knows that by now,' I said.
'Yes,' he said. 'The man Schneider has worked hard. I am pleased.'
'So what is it all about?' I said again.
*It is quite simple,' said Llewellyn. 'I am Welsh. I intend to switch England off and let it die in the dark.*
He certainly did not look mad. His throne was a bit too lavish, of course, but so was his physique. He had worked up a bit of a howl once or twice during his history lesson, but it was no more than the sort of singlemindedness that you might find in any pimply-faced Taffy down the Fulham Road on Twickenham night. Certainly not paranoia, I thought. But then, I thought, all the psychology I know is what I get from Panorama and War Cry, and that may not be everything.
'You must be right off your bloody Welsh nut,' I said.
He nodded to himself, looking at me as though I were some sort of second-hand carpet he had bought. 'Yes,' he said. T will have this schoolboy humour beaten out of you.'
'Your man Sullivan has tried it,' I said. 'I'm going to kill him,'
A look of distaste wandered across Llewellyn's wide face. 'I may well allow you to do so,' he said. 'The man was more of a mistake than most. His perversion, I am told, is becoming tiresome.'
He heaved out of his chair and walked up the big room to stand against the great golden warning on the wall.
'Because I know,' he said, 'that one way - mm? - or another you will be keeping a closed mouth, I will enlighten you.'
He stretched one huge, manicured paw and pushed. The banner slid silently aside. Behind it was a vast relief map of Great Britain. He slid a keyboard out from a recess below it and punched a button. The map lit up with a million coloured lights.
'Do you know what this is?' he said.
'Yes,' I said. T saw a smaller version of it downstairs, in some sort of conference room, I think.'
'Ah,' he said. 'It was you who killed the dog.'
'Yes,' I said. 'But it might easily have been the landlord of your local.'
'What?'he said.
'Never mind,' I said. 'Anyway, what you have there, I reckon, is an electrical anatomy of the country.'
'Exactly,' he said. 'A map of power. The one you saw downstairs is a simple dummy for easy briefing. This is the real thing. At the proper time it will be connected in parallel with the master console.'
'And where would that be?' I said.
'In my computer room, deep down under the Bendricks,' he said. 'It has taken me twenty years to do it, Brock, and now it is done. They talk about power, and they fight for it in the boardrooms and the ministries like the rats they are. They write of the corridors of power, Brock, never remembering power is tangible. It runs in cables, not in corridors. Watch.'
His hand hovered over the keyboard and dropped onto a single red button.
'Battersea,' he said.
I watched the middle of London. One of the bigger red lights flared bright and went black.
'That would be Battersea out,' he said. 'Now, if I wished. But do not be alarmed. We are not connected to the master console. There is a little time left to them, those little people and their little lives. But watch what it means to cut out just that one power source.'
As he was speaking, more lights were flaring and dying. First the smaller red lights through the south-east corner of England, and after them a thousand white satellites winked out in some sort of sequence.
'Battersea,' he said, 'is the mains fuse, as it were, to the whole south-eastern corner.' He watched Kent as it died into black. 'It is not so simple that we must melt just a single cable, of course, but the principle is the same. The whole business is much too complicated for you to understand, a delicate matter of controlled power surge and calculated overcompensation. The man Ball, despite his unfortunate weakness, is the most brilliant electrical physicist in the world.'
'I'll bet he can't whistle through his teeth,' I said, but Llewellyn was back in his howl. His meaty fingers hovered high above the keyboard like a squadron of loaded spy-planes.
'The railways,' he said. 'I'll stop the railways.'
The spy-planes swooped onto a handful of green buttons and the big green lights of London, Birmingham, Manchester and Edinburgh flared and died. Then the green pinpoints between, that traced the main lines of England. He turned to look at me. He was addled all right, I saw, but I also saw that he was in deadly earnest.
'Do you begin to see?' he said. 'Now watch this. Watch the white lights. They are the shops and the homes, the streets and the factories of England. Where the people are, Brock. Where the power is.'
His hand played over the keyboard again. And all over England and far into the north of Scotland the million white lights flared and began to die.
'Think what those little lights represent,' he said. 'At the end of every cable in the land are the machines I have made, the! accessories of progress I have peddled to you all my life, - mm?\ Electric'toasters and television sets and refrigerators and mixers and hair-driers, all the tools your flabby damned Englishwomen have made you buy. And all the lathes and lights and lifts, too.| And the petrol pumps. Your transport. Brock. Everything you live by. Everything you live for. All with the Alleiec guarantee, -mm? You see what I mean by power?-'
He turned back to the board. He punched out the great red power points of the South-West and the Midlands, the North and Scotland. And he went on playing like a mad pianist until the whole huge map was black and dead. Except, of course, for the glowing green egg of Glamorganshire, from Swansea to Newport and from Llantrisant to the sea. He stood tall, breathing heavily. By now, I was caught up in his howl too. After a while he spoke.
'Let them die,' he said. 'Or let them take their choice.'
'And what is the choice?' I said.
'Hard labour,' he said. 'What else? Britons never, never will be slaves?' He sneered. 'But they are not Britons. They are damned mongrels, the bastard sons of Hengest and the French pimps. The true Britons are the Britons of Wales. This is the Land of our Fathers, Brock. You will have heard us sing so movingly at football matches. And England, too, is the Land of our Fathers, and now they are waiting for me to take it back.'
'You can't do it,' I said, wondering if I was right.
T can, Brock, I can,' he said. 'I have worked for twenty years to do it. No, I think I have worked even longer, all my life, to do it. And now I am ready.'
'Why you?' I said. 'Why a big, fat tallyman like you?' By his looks I was dicing it, but I reckoned I could cope with him before he called Williams. I was wrong. He was bigger than me and he moved faster. He grabbed me by the throat and growled.
'Mind your damned language, - mm?' he said. He threw me half the length of the room. 'Unroll that parchment.'
I got to my feet and caught the roll he was throwing at- me. I unrolled it on the table. It was a vast genealogical chart and a great thumb swooped over my shoulder to stab at it.
'Here,' he said. 'The early Tewdwrs, leading from Hywel the Good to Giraldus Cambrensis and beyond. And here, where the great Glyndwr, my namesake, joins the stream. And here, OwenTewoyr who secretly married Catherine, widow of Henry V of England. All of my blood, all of them. See Owen's two sons, Edmund and Jasper, the step-brothers of Henry VI. See Edmund's son Henry, born in Pembroke Castle to be crowned Henry VII, the Welsh King of England. And then look further.'
I did. And the way it was drawn, the line from Henry VII, right or wrong, dropped like a plumb-line to the bottom of the parchment where the last name was printed. It was lettered in red, Tudor Owen Glendower Llewellyn.
'What about Henry the Eighth?' I said. 'He has some claim.' I shook my head to clear it. The man was so big and powerful, and so certain of himself, that I was beginning to believe his madness.
'Henry the Eighth?' he snarled. 'Henry the Eighth? A murdering bastard.' He rolled up his incredible family tree and planted it firmly beside the red bull's head and the end of the history of Wales. The room was quiet. He stood in front of me breathing deeply, pulling himself back out of the depths of his lunatic vision.
'Now you know,' he said. His huge hands held my shoulders, and the cold, brilliant eyes bored deep. 'And believe it. Very soon, every man in England will know. And every man in England will believe or die. But today, Brock, you are one of only ten. And it puts you very near to death.'
I breathed deep too. As my father said, you can refuse at leisure but there looked to be very little of that left. I wondered if I could take him before Williams could get at me. Provis would have tried. But Llewellyn looked as solid as any three of his goons and his hands were heavy on my shoulders. When in doubt, follow your nose. But only if it quivers. Mine was drooping a bit just then.
Then a talkbox buzzed. Llewellyn knocked it on and grunted. It said, in a tinny Welsh tremolo, that the council had gathered. Llewellyn grunted again and called for Williams. He came through the door like Wilf Wooller on the bash, straight at me with an eager light in his eye. But Llewellyn stopped him.
'No,' he said. 'But watch him closely. And bring him down to the council room after me.'
'What about the girl?' I said.
'Yes,' he said. 'The girl. Bring her as well. If you've been playing with her, make her respectable.' He left us.
Out in the gallery, Angie was sitting in a corner. She was dishevelled again and a goon was standing over her. But she looked unharmed and she smiled when she saw me. I squeezed her hand.
They pushed us down the stairs across the gloomy great hall and into the council room. It was the room I had first broken into, long, long ago. The red bull flag still covered the table, now set for six places. Llewellyn was seated at the head of the table and a little distance from it. Near the wall, a blacksuit was hunched over an electric stenograph machine.
I looked at the six men seated silently at the table waiting for Llewellyn to speak. T recognised two of them at once. Ball the boffin sat at Llewellyn's right, and Schneider, who looked at me once and then quickly away, was at the bottom of the table where an adman should be. Then I recognised another. It was J.J.G. Growland, television pundit. I flicked through my memory for the other names. Breumann, Fluck and Silverstein.
I guessed Breumann easily. He was the fat yellow spider with the bristled bullet head and he sat at Llewellyn's left hand, Fluck would be the big, flaxen-haired piece with the frock-waisted grey twill. He sat beside Ball. That left Silverstein, a perspiring, Gower Street cartoon character at the bottom of thetable with Schneider.
Llewellyn jerked his head and, as always, Williams jumped. He pushed us into two chairs in the far corner and stood there, breathing down our necks. Hesmelled of bread and butter.
'Welcome to Castell Coch, gentlemen,' said Llewellyn. 'At the end of our meeting there is an introduction to be made, and also a disposal. Now, however, we will follow the agenda. Herr Breumann is here, of course, to listen to your progress reports. You will make them simply, please, and with brevity.'
He leaned back in his chair. It was neither as big nor as lavish as his throne upstairs, but it was twice the size of any other chair in the room. Its legs were longer too. Llewellyn, like Alan Ladd, always took pains, it seemed, to add to his height.
'Report yourselves, gentlemen,' he said. He nicked a finger minutely. Schneider rose from his chair.
'As I told you, Sir, over, the telephone,' he began. But Llewellyn stopped him.
'I ordered you to report yourself,' he said. 'And I meant exactly that.'
'Yes, Sir,' said Schneider. He fingered his gleaming, buttoned-down collar, stood straighter and started again.
'Schneider, Sir,' he said. 'Public relations.' He lifted a manilla envelope. My full report is here for further study. It includes a summary of the final depth probe completed this week, but in brief it shows that my main task has been successfully completed. Expressed in non-scientific language, it means that your name, Sir, is now firmly welded into the national feeling of affluence and progress, and that this is so right across the country. The Kramer Attitude Probe and two full Semantic Orientationals, one based on our overt propaganda and the other on our subliminals, give identical results. The average emotional acceptance index is far beyond the established high norm, up in the top nineties. The lowest single measure, in fact, was well into the upper eighties.'
'Which region?' said Llewellyn.
'The London area, Sir,' said Schneider. Llewellyn grunted and motioned for him to continue.
'On the domestic side,' said Schneider, 'AH Allelec operation points have responded to the measures I advised. The work-population, Sir, has now reached the high-low tension balance I set out to achieve.'
'What the hell does that mean?' said Llewellyn.
'It means, Sir,' said Schneider, 'that all your workers are, without being consciously aware of the fact, in a state of extreme expectancy. On the point of what I must describe, I am afraid, as a corporate orgasm.'
Breumann lifted one fat yellow hand and let it fall onto the table. Llewellyn nodded. Breumann spoke in slow English, in a voice that bubbled obscenely like a hot mud spring.
'This pseudo-science,' he said. 'What is the man saying?'
Llewellyn looked at Schneider. 'Explain,' he said.
'My task,' said Schneider, 'was to soften the country. I have done this by riding on the back of its rising prosperity and contriving to push the national feeling of self-satisfaction over the edge, as it were, into a more malleable, flabby, smug complacency. My other task was to relate the name of Lord Llewellyn in all minds with the national well-being.'
'Why?' said Bruemann. 'In view of your intentions, as outlined to me by Lord Llewellyn last year, it seems to have been an unnecessary exercise. You are taking this country by force, are you not. Or are you proposing to coax it into
submission?'
'My object,' said Schneider, 'was to induce a state of social euphoria so that we will now be able to take the country by the scruff of its- neck from its warm feather bed, as it were, and fling it naked into a black cold night. I have engineered, Herr Breumann, the conditions for maximum national trauma.'
'Enough,' said Llewellyn. 'Continue your report.'
'That is all, Sir,' said Schneider. 'The text of your announcement is before you for approval and the final television films are here for you to see. In fact, Sir, I can report all systems green and solid all the way.'
Llewellyn grunted. 'Next,' he said.
The flaxen-haired fascist piece rose elegantly from his chair. 'Fluck, Sir. Operations,' he said in a voice as elegantly tailored as his narrow twill trousers. 'My arrangements, also, are complete ahead of schedule. All group leaders are operational. Morale in all control points is high. The man Sullivan has followed my instructions competently and the Bendricks shock force is organised and ready for posting. Dr Ball's machines are delivered and in a state of readiness at all distribution points.'
His hair gleamed in the sunlight as he turned to send a long, lingering, loving look at the ladylike boffin. 'I would like to say, Sir, that Dr Ball's help and co-operation has been invaluable.'
The look of distaste wandered again over Llewellyn's broad jowls. He may be addled, I thought, and he is at least as dangerous as a hydrogen pile on the blink. But if he is a king at all, he is certainly all king, not part queen like his lads. The kinks around him, I thought, should be feeling as much lead in the belly as I was feeling.
'Anything more?' said Llewellyn.
'Yes,' said Fluck, tearing his eyes from his boyfriend. 'I would like permission, Sir, to dispose of the man Sullivan. He is of no further use to me.' He looked at Ball again, this time with a glint of spite in his eye. I wondered if Sullivan had been tempting the boffin with the pleasures of the classroom.
'Granted,' said Llewellyn, and looked at Silverstein. The little man shot out of his chair, great beads of sweat rolling down his face. He was even more of the cartoon intellectual than I had thought, with the authentic baggy, slightly greasy, New Statesman tweediness. He exuded, with his sweat, an unappetising pink mix of high-minded outrage, hook-nosed arrogance and worker's eduational complacency. He talked fast too, a lot of gibberish about successful rationalisation.
Breumann belched out a thick question mark and Silverstein hastened to explain.
'There are several Welsh Nationalist organisations,' he jjaid, rattling like a machine-gun. 'The most established is known as the Plaid Cymru, the most aggressive is Mudiad Amddiffyn Cymru, whose activities have been largely acts of undirected violence. Blowing up pylons and so on. There are also the more cultural organisations and, of course, a body of Welsh-born legislators in Parliament. I have been concerned with plans to rationalise these elements into a single planned political group, one to which our operation will be acceptable.'
'Why have you bothered to do this?' said Breumann.
'What I have worked for,' said Silverstein, 'is a body of trained policy-makers and planners whose thought is directed, if not towards Welsh Dominion as we see it, then certainly towards Welsh Independence in a more orthodox form. From such a group, Lord Llewellyn will be able to choose, in due course, his future administrators. We have learned, Herr Breumann, from the mistakes of your own late leader. The new order here will not be left in the hands of a rabble of perverts and gangsters.'
Silverstein's flickering eyes rested for a moment on Fluck, who sneered and shrugged his shoulders.
'Enough,' said Llewellyn. He looked at Growland.
Growland rose and composed himself for speech. Seen live he was, like most television figures, surprisingly smaller. His head was bigger, though. He made his famous, oft-ridiculed, erudite grimace and stroked his famous, oft-ridiculed, floppy cravat. He seemed to be missing the studio lights. And perhaps the teleprompt too. But he had very little to report.
T have very little to report, Sir,' he said.
'In that case,' said Llewellyn, 'perhaps you will be good enough to express yourself more briefly than usual, - mm?'
'Yes, Sir,' said Growland, and cleared his throat. 'My task, and that of my colleagues recruited as they were from the great universities of the world, is at present a largely academic one. After the event, however, when the new pattern of society has been established,' he paused here to indulge himself in one of his famous, oft-ridiculed, knowing sniggers, 'then, Sir, my department will be fully ready to execute my plan for maximum national productivity at minimum national outlay.' His cravat flopped in a quivering of pride. T may say to Herr Breumann, Sir, that unlike the 'previous speaker, my department has taken pains to learn, not from the mistakes but from the successes of his late leader, whose place in history, I, for one...'
But Llewellyn had raised his hand. 'You are not on television now, Professor,' he said.
'Quite, Sir,' said Growland. T apologise and continue. My plans are ready. All settlement sites are chosen. Evacuation and resettlement will be complete within twenty-four hours of your permission to proceed. In addition to my main plan I have, of course, supplied the operational director with all pertinent data from relevant historical precedent. And I further
.believe that Mr'Schneider's-work has been made considerably more'effective by his study of my extrapolations from the work, done,- in Africa and in America, as well as in Germany, to generate mass movements of attitude.'
'Thank you,' said Llewellyn. He looked at Ball, who rose daintily and at great length. The delicate boffin scratched his crutch and Fluck watched, squirming in sympathy.
'My report, Sir,' said Ball, 'is too technical, of course, to be comprehended by any of the council but yourself. Simplified' almost to absurdity, however,' I am now ready to cancel all electrical power outside our Glamorganshire . control compound. The National Grid was, of course, a simple matter. Its control could have been achieved by any competent physicist at any time, given the proper access. What has taken years, arid would never have been achieved without your organisational, .genius, Sir, has been the installation of Alleiec master .cables at air major power sources outside the Grid. This, is now completed and my report is simply this. I need some hours to-build up the necessary power surge now that the computer is fully programmed. I am then, ready for operation at your convenience, Sir.'
'Thank you, Dr Ball,' said. Llewellyn. He twisted in his big chair to face Breumann, and for a long minute he favoured the German with the fuli power of his gigantic personality.
'You.have listened to these reports, Herr Breumann,' he ■said at last. 'And you will have no doubt of their accuracy.: You will therefore understand that the project I outlined to you and your colleagues last year in Breichenburg is now ready to put into operation: You Will wish to comment.'
•Breumann nodded slowly. His eyes travelled even 'more slowly over the faces of the men.at the table. There was no flicker of expression in them or any movement of the thick, yellow flesh of his face. His eyes looked through.me, then-past me to Angie at my side.-There they remained. I felt the girl shudder as though slugs were crawling on her flesh.-
Breumann continued to look at her, his eyes moving up and down over her body. She was.now shuddering uncontrollably. As he watched her, Breumann's hand crept over his paunch arid up his chest. He was stroking himself. The hand Was so puffed With blubber that the bones of his knuckles' made •dimples in the flesh. Then the two thick fingers of his.hand crept into the breast pocket of his sWeat-stained jacket. They reappeared holding a long Wooden kitchen match. His thumbnail flicked it and it burst into flame. The room was silent. Everyone's eyes were on the yellow hand and the flaming match. The expression of distaste was heavy on Llewellyn's face. But Breumann was still watching Angie.
He waved the match to extinguish it, and held the smouldering head beneath his nostrils, greedily sniffing up the sulphur.
Then he let the spent match fall onto the table. He looked back at Llewellyn.
'I will take the girl,' he said.
Llewellyn nodded. 'She is for disposal,' he said.
'Good,' said Breumann. He looked at Angie again. Then he let his hand fall to the table. 'Now to business. I am impressed, Sir. My colleagues in Zurich and elsewhere have given me the power to decide. And I decide. We will arrange that sterling remains steady for a period of six months after the date of your operation. It will take all our resources to do this, you understand?'
Llewellyn nodded.
'Good,' said the German. 'It will be done. And the price will be as we agreed at Dreichenburg?' Llewellyn nodded again.
'Good,' said Breumann. He heaved himself to his feet! His paunch hung over his belly, soft and yellow and greasy with sweat. 'If someone will show me to my room,' he said, Twill take the girl now.'
He shuffled over towards us grinning. His teeth were yellow too. 'Come along, Fraulein,' he said. 'There are several things in my bag that will please you.' His hand reached out to take her shoulder and she whimpered.
Then he was on the floor and I was lying on top of him. My hands were around his throat and his life was gasping out in a-thick, sweet gust of decay. But Fluck was on me in a single stride and his elegant foot exploded on the side of my head.
When I opened my eyes, the German had gone, and Angie had gone too. I was on my feet, one of Williams' arms locked around my throat and his other fist holding my right arm savagely twisted behind my back.. Time had passed and Ball was speaking.
'He will then, at least, be of some last use, Sir,' he was saying. 'And perhaps he will add a little entertainment to my demonstration.'
Llewellyn waved his hand indifferently. 'He is for disposal,' he said, 'in any way you wish.' 'Thank you, Sir,' said Ball.
Llewellyn paused for a moment before me as he was leaving the room.
T am disappointed, Brock,' he said. T thought I saw some value in you.'
'right,' Fluck to Williams. 'Bring him upstairs.'
He sauntered out of the door. Williams kicked my heel savagely and without relaxing his strangle-hold, marched me forward. We must have looked like those little Siamese soldiers from Hong Kong, who march in perfect step down sloping planks. But we did it more painfully.
They got me back to my room. Williams threw me into the chair and his attendant goon wrenched my arms behind me and manacled them to the smooth blond uprights. Swedish design is certainly functional. Then Williams .took a deep, happy breath, for he was about to realise his life's ambition. I braced myself.
But Fluck was in emphatic control. He waved his languid hand, in an elegant parody of Llewellyn himself. 'You heard Dr Ball's amusing suggestion, Williams,' he said. 'Let the man rest for an hour or so. We shall want him at the top of his form for the party. Otherwise he will be too weak and it will all be over too soon. Then we shan't get our money's worth, eh?'
So they left me alone. The room was fragrant with the fragrance of Angie's Gin Fizz. One of the fun perfumes, she had said. I looked at the bed and saw Breumann's obscene, yellow, grinning face as he shuffled towards Angie. Then I went berserk for a while. But the chains and the chair were too solid. I ended up on the floor with my arms almost torn from their sockets.
Then I wrestled the red haze out of my head and tried to be practical. I made an inventory. My wallet, with all the fat man's spending money, had long gone into the goons' kitty, and my penknife with it. But they had scorned my battered cigarette lighter and left about seventeen and sixpence worth, I reckoned, of small change. And they had overlooked my wrist watch too, but it was just an ordinary watch that tells the ordinary time. No tiny transmitter in it, tuned to the RAF distress waveband. No flat-handled throwing knives. Not even a cyanide pill to melt on Breumann's coated tongue.
So I laboured myself and my chair around the room, looking for anything at all. Angie's tiny razor was on the shelf but high out of reach. So was her hair spray. This was a pity. A warmed-up aerosol will make a useful bomb if you care to risk blowing off your hand with it. All I could find within reach was an assortment of hairpins on the dressing table. I manoeuvred myself round and grabbed a painful handful. I even knew why. Whatever was about to happen to me was likely to be electrical. Metal might be useful.
I was unable to reach my pockets, of course, so until they came to fetch me, I sat there clutching my pathetic' bi&dle of hairpins in an increasingly wet palm, trying not to think of Angie and what might be happening to her. The seconds went by like crippled slugs.
Then they came for me, wearing their party clothes and taking no chances. Fluck was tall, willowy and magnificent in immaculate evening dress. Williams, smelling of moth balls now as well as bread and butter, was crammed painfully into a knife-edged blue serge with a sick red stripe. They unchained me from my chair and took me out onto the gallery.
They stopped there to dust me down. My rather flashy, lightweight was holding up surprisingly well, as a matter o"f fact. A sign of the times, perhaps. Maybe Austin Reed caters for the more robust professions now. But crawling around the carpet with a chair on my back had made me a little dusty for party-going.
From the first wide first-floor gallery below, came the noise of enjoyment, the clink of glasses, the hoarse whisper of Stan Getz, up to his larynx in bossa nova and the more musical rhubarb of civilised Welsh Smalltalk. They turned me around to dust down my back and I managed a view of the party, looking for Angie. I failed to see her and neither could I see Breumann. I felt sick.
The rest of Llewellyn's council were all there, as well as a few solid-looking management types, presumably off the top of Alleiec. Some well-pressed hulks, out of the same mould as Tonypandy Williams, stood around uncomfortably, holding tulip glasses in their horny hands. And there was a whole covey of assorted women, cleaved to the nines and flashing acres of meat as they flitted from man to man with the floodlit assurance of nightclub butterflies.
As I watched, Silverstein, still sweating, reached to the jutting half-covered breast of a henna-rinsed Juno twice his size. He squeezed it, made a noise like an inadequate motor-horn, giggled and dropped his empty glass. A black-suited goon sprang to his side With a loaded tray and the woman looked down at him thirstily.
Before they pulled me away, I looked for Llewellyn himself, but he was not in evidence. It was not his kind of party. Then I was being pushed down the stairs and stood between two goons in a corner. Fluck smiled at me and sauntered over to where Ball was standing between a pair of pneumatic darlings, ignoring their conversation and peering curiously down the low, loose front of the smaller, fatter one.
Fluck pulled him away and engaged him in petulant conversation. Ball shrugged, smiled and patted the man on the shoulder. He seemed to quiver with relief. Then he waved towards my corner and Ball nodded. They both left the gallery, walking downstairs in close conversation.
By now, some of the party had noticed me. Two of the women drifted up towards me and took me in, whispering and giggling some smutty secret. Then Schneider untangled himself from a coffee-coloured clinging vine sheathed in a sexy red shimmer, and walked over towards me. My two sidekicks took a firm grip on my arms and Schneider came closer.
'High, Brock,' he said. 'Great party, huh?'
'Great,' I said.
'Like I said, man,' he said. 'Glad to have you aboard. But you're not drinking. You could do with a squeeze of the sauce bottle?'
And he threw his drink in my face. It was champagne. It may even have been Blanc de Blanc Brut, like the big boys drink. And it stung.
'That's for using my secretary,' he said. 'I'll be seeing you, fellow.' He laughed. 'You'll be too busy, I guess, to be seeing me. But I'll be seeing you.' He laughed again. The clinging vine pricked up her ears and started climbing again.
Ugh, I thought, trying to do a cool and stop myself thinking, of all the American legacies, from Dick Van Dyke to accelerated freeze drying, the one that will finally split the English-speaking Union is the science of mass communication. I hope.
The clinging vine was really climbing by now, like a forbidden sequence from the Living Desert. Schneider forgot me fast and started twitching.
'Meanwhile, back in the kennel,' I said. The clinging vine took a moment off to look at me. It was Steve, from Tiger Bay, making like Lauren Bacall with a deep tan.
'What's this slice of cold beef, honey?' she said.
'Ah, nuts,' said Schneider, nuzzling her long golden neck. 'Just some nothing they found in the septic tank.'
'What's that about the kennel?' said Steve.
T got a real doll of a Doberman back home,' said Schneider. 'Same colour as you, honey.'
'Bow, wow,' said Steve. She unclung herself from the voice of Madison Avenue and examined me. She raised her arms and undulated a little. The sexy red shimmered.
'What's the matter, Charlie?' she said, putting on a coarse, Jamaican-Welsh sneer. 'Do you got no little friend, then? You all alone here, hey?' She undulated some more and the goons tightened their grip on my arms. They were suffering too.
'No,' I said. 'I had a little friend to pet and play with. But they took him to the Bendricks.'
'Aw, come on Honey,' said Schneider. 'He won't never need no friend no more.' And he dragged her away towards the drink. Then Ball came back, escorted lovingly by Fluck. The music stopped and the ladylike boffin tinkled his glass with a golden swizzle stick. The noise of the party faded, punctuated into silence by a last, wishful titter from Silverstein.
'Gentlemen,' said Ball. T will not apologise for calling this temporary halt to your socialising since I believe that you « 31 be entertained as well as instructed by what I have to show you.' He paused and sipped his champagne. Fluck, without taking his devoted eyes from the lanky boffin, snapped his fingers and a goon came forward to refill the glass. Then Ball continued. 'As to the presence of the, er, ladies, I believe that you have all been made aware of the facilities which exist for the preservation of security over the short time still remaining.'
Fluck nodded. Ball sipped and continued.
'As you will be aware,' he said. T have devoted some considerable time to the development of something you know as the Alleiec Security Machine. This is what I propose to show you tonight. But first, I will take up a little of your time in reminding you of the fallibilities of the arrangements my machine is intended to replace.'
He nodded to my two sidekicks, who rushed me down the stairs into the hall. I stood in the centre of the tiles looking up at the faces which peered at me over the balustrades of the gallery. Then I looked about me. I was in a clear space about twenty-five feet across, making a brightly lit circle around which a squad of goons were erecting a high fence of thick wire and mesh. The supports of the fence were buried into solid bases, heavy enough to require the combined strength of four goons to move them into place. Where the mesh connected with the uprights, it passed through porcelain insulation. If I were a cow, I thought, this is a fence which would certainly keep me out of the kale.
The goons completed their work and retired through a sort of gate on which was a heavy switchbox, trailing a cable as thick as my wrist. At a nod from Ball one of the goons threw the switch and stood back. A fine humming sounded in the hall.
Ball leaned over the balustrade and spoke to me. 'Now that the cable is live, Mr Brock,' he said, 'you will be well advised to keep away from it.'
He turned to the rest of his audience. 'The man you see below,' he said, 'is, as some of you know, highly trained in violence. Over the past twenty-four hours, in fact, he has disposed of a surprisingly large number of our security staff and the fact that he is still alive is sufficient demonstration of the fallibility of our present security arrangements.' He sipped thoughtfully from his tulip glass, and smiled at Fluck. "So much for the men,' he said. 'But you would think, would you not, that the addition to their resources of well-trained fighting dogs would be of formidable assistance. Let us see.'
He nodded to the goons behind the wire. They pushed a wide rubber tube through a flap in the fence.
I waited. There was a flurry of activity in the deep shadow beneath the gallery, then a huge Alsatian dog scrambled through the tube into my arena. It stood blinking in the light, growling angrily and bristling the rough fur of its neck. I stood absolutely still. God, I hate dogs.
Ball's voice continued its commentary from above. 'All Alleiec dogs, of course, are trained to kill,' he said. 'This particular specimen has so successfully reverted to its predatory origins that it kills, like the wolves in the north, for food as well as for pleasure. It is, gentlemen, quite literally a man-eater.'
The dog was growling up into the light where the monotonous voice was coming from. Then it saw me. Its redding eyes reduced me to bite-sized lumps, and, as it growled deep in its throat, it lowered its massive barrelled chest onto the tiles and began squirming towards me. It was the biggest dog I had ever seen and it was making the most horrifying noise I had ever heard.
I cast desperately around for an anger to swamp my terror. It was there, of course, right on top of all the other, lesser angers like income tax and railwaymen and Roy Castle. It had been churning in my belly for hours. Breumann, doing unthinkable things somewhere in this evil place. I got angry just in time. The great beast launched itself off the floor like a Cara-velle. I threw myself sideways and kicked at its underside as it twisted past me. It yelped. There was a gasp from the audience above.
The huge jaws were dripping foam now and the animal was circling around, stalking back within leaping distance. I backed away, trying to sense the live cables behind me but unable to take my eyes from the blazing, rock-steady gaze of the huge dog.
fThe cable, Mr Brock,' said the voice of Ball from above. 'Don't fry' yourself, if you please. Don't spoil the fun.'
Silverstein sniggered. And the noise caught the dog's attention. For a second its gaze wavered. I jumped, and like a football player converting the try of his life, connected with the animal's slavering head with a shock that travelled up my leg and into my groin.
No human kick could hope to put such an animal out for long, but momentarily its eyes went up into its head and it made a frantic scrabbling effort to rise. I had carried on over its back to land behind it and I got it by the tail. Christ, but it was heavy. I slid it round in a circle on the tiles, as though I was about to throw the hammer and it came slowly off the ground, twisting and snapping as it circled. But I had a firm grip now. I whirled it around my head twice and let go. The great animal sailed through the air into the humming cables around us.
There was a high scream of agony that cut off in a louder flash of flame. And the dog lay smoking on the tiles of the floor. A terrible smell of burned hair and scorched flesh filled my nostrils. I retched with the nausea of it, overcame the desire 10 vomit and stood still, filling my lungs deep with the tainted air.
There was silence for a while. Then I heard an odd sort of clacking. I raised my head. Ball was clicking his thumbnails in the sort of polite applause you might hear at a Royal Society beano. The remainder of the audience was still gazing in shock and the huge smoking corpse on the tiles lay motionless.
'Bravo,' Ball was saying. 'Bravo, Mr Brock. You have amply demonstrated the first of my points.' He nodded to the goons. One switched off the power from the fence and the whole squad came into the arena. Two held me, the rest spread themselves over the hall and clicked to attention. Ball turned to the audience again.
'As you see, gentlemen,' he said, 'fallibility is not confined to the human element. Something more reliable was needed. If one man, such as we have seen here, can deal easily with both our highly trained guards and our fiercest fighting dogs, imagine, if you please, the difficulties we might soon encounter when we are faced with the necessity to enforce a curfew over the whole population.'
He signalled into the shadows. 'Yes, gentlemen,' he said, 'something more reliable is needed. Something beyond animal fallibility.'
We waited. My goons held me tighter and the others stood silently at attention. After a while, from the gaping end of the rubber tunnel, there rolled, like an anti-climax, two quaint metal discs each about two feet wide and four or five inches thick. The lower parts of black rubber wheels were visible beneath each silvery carapace. At one end of each shell was a small window, knobbed and glazed like a photographer's exposure meter, at the other end was a sort of twin rectum, two small plug-holes about an inch apart.
The things rolled slowly around the arena, in and among the standing goons in a sort of slow-motion slalom. One of the odd little brutes approached me, but when it had crept to within a couple of feet it turned and snuffled off to the left. They both continued to wander aimlessly through the forest of big, black feet until I remembered what they reminded me of. Doctor Marvell's Miraculous Mechanical Midgets from the Beanos of my youth. Or perhaps it was the Magnet. But I was feeling in no mood to join with the sniggers that began to sound from above.
Ball's voice silenced them abruptly.
'Don't laugh too heartily, gentlemen,' he said. 'These toys represent a brilliant research into the mechanics of the human brain. They are reproductions of the early thinking machines developed at Bristol University by Professor Grey Walter.
Strictly speaking, of course, they are not toys, nor even machines. They are man-made animals. As you can see, they are clever enough to avoid the obstacles in their path. Just as do you and I. They avoid bright lights and dark shadows, as we do ourselves. And they answer to their names.' He signalled down into the arena.
'Fi-do,' said one of the goons in a loud, clear, over-enunciated voice, and one of the tortoises obediently turned and snuffled towards him. It stopped twenty-four inches from-his feet.
'Con-Tin-Ue,' said the goon, and the tortoise carried on with its aimless wandering.
There was another snigger from above.'But this time an appreciative one.
'Yes,' said Ball. 'They answer to their names, as we do ourselves. And finally, gentlemen, they feed themselves, as we do. When their batteries are fading, they return independently to their home-generators to plug themselves in and recharge.'
The little steel animals wandered at will. They were no longer' as ridiculous as they had first appeared. From above came an eerie, high-pitched oscillation that cut into my eardrums. I looked up. Ball was holding a tiny box, and as he took a finger from its button the noise died. I looked at the tortoises. They had stopped their aimless search for nothing and had died with the noise. Ball laughed.
'Also like people,' he said, 'they are dependent on power. And the men who hold the switch control them absolutely. He pressed the button in his hand. The little box oscillated and the tortoises came back to life. 'And now,' said Ball, T will demonstrate to you the killing machines I have developed from these amusing experiments.'
<
Jesus Christ, I thought, cursing the fat man and the whole idea of Addison Road, they never thought to teach me how to deal with automated, electronic Alsatians. They never put Ray Bradbury on the reading list, or even Brian Aldiss. They gave me half the shocking pink folders in the registry with all the jazz ■ about how to hawk my greenstuff over the Berlin Wall and not to' park my car in Red Square. But all they gave me for general reading was the Schellenberg Memoirs and the Seven Pillars of Wisdom. So I was back to Rule One. Cross your fingers and hope to die.
Then, thank God, Ball called for the pause that refreshes and let the audience replenish its glasses. He leaned over the gallery and brought me a bubbling glass by calling down to the goons that I was to have a last, hearty drink. I needed it. I looked up and straight into Steve's gorgeous golden face. She was still wearing the coarse, brass face of a Cardiff strumpet but I raised my glass to her. . 'Your health, Milly,' I said. 'You'd make a bomb up west with what you've got shaking for you. Try hawking it round Addison Road. Knock twice and ask for Greene.' Maybe, I thought, she would get out of all this and save the world from the Taffies. I crossed my fingers again, drained my glass and threw it over my' shoulder. I had been right. It really was Blanc de Blanc Burt 1943. It made me feel a little better.. The gesture,T mean, not the wine. Too dry for me, I am ashamed to say.
Then Ball tinkled his glass again, called for absolute unbroken silence and resumed play. The goons retired from the. arena and switched the fence back to frying heat. And we all waited. I hitched, up my trousers and tightened my belt. I felt in my pockets. The collection of hairpins felt utterly useless and so did I. Then the. first of Ball's security machines came snuffling through, the rubber tunnel. I stood, still and tried to stop breathing.
It was bigger than the last lot of toys and coloured a dull;-professional black. It had the same knobbed glass eye and the same twin rectum. But there \vere differences. Beneath its bye was a small circular hatch.from which flicked a slender needle blade about twelve inches long! • A grilled swelling rose from the centre of its black shell, and the little rubber wheels 6f its progenitors had become thick, silent caterpillar tracks..
It snuffled itself away from the tunnel entrance towards the edge of the arena then changed its direction. It made a complete and leisurely circuit of the perimeter and came to rest about twelve inches in, equidistant from two of the thick stanchions
i4t
■which supported the live mesh. It was designed, I guessed, to lurk in what would normally be the shadow of a wall, leaving itself sufficient room for action in any direction.
It swivelled silently around on its tracks to point away from the fence into the arena and squatted as still as a spider. The only movements were the constant slow revolutions of the turret on its back and the quick, silver flickering of the needle beneath its eye.
The eye was, in fact, pointed straight at me and was not designed, apparently, to motivate the thing. I was standing at least as still as the stanchions of the fence, though, so perhaps it acted on movement. After another century of seconds, I doubted this, for the eye was fixed and could only point ahead. I twitched a finger. The thing ignored me. I moved my head. It still ignored me. I breathed a fraction more easily, but still silently, for I had recognised the revolving turret as a directional microphone, I thought. The thing, then, was motivated by noise. Which, of course, I should have been quicker to figure, in a machine designed to roam the night-time streets of England to keep Llewellyn's lunatic curfew^
There was still no sound from above to confuse the thing. Perhaps three minutes had passed since it had snuffled through the rubber tunnel. I took another minute to raise my head, without even the rustle of Terylene, so that I could look at my watch. I thanked God, equally silently, for the expensive silent tick of the Swiss status symbol Mother had coaxed out of the housekeeping for my twenty-first birthday a millennium ago.
I timed the sweep of the listening turret. One revolution every five seconds. I watched it point at me and as it passed I clicked the glass of my watch. The turret flicked back to point at me and something inside whirred in the silence. I tensed myself but the thing made no move towards me. The turret continued to sweep a short arc, listening for confirmation of the noise it thought it had heard. Then it resumed full revolutions and the whirring stopped inside it. For what it was worth, I had discovered that I was free to make tiny noises, and therefore movements, of, say, three seconds' duration. So long as I could see the thing, of course, and choose my time.
Then Ball made an audible pout of impatience. The machine swivelled towards the noise, moved two rapid feet and stopped. It had calculated that the noise came from above its reach. Ball spoke querulously.
'Speed it up,' he said.
There was a movement from above and something rattled on the tiles at my feet, thrown from above. But my eyes were fixed on the black machine. It had heaved around instantly towards the sound. Its inside whirred and it came at me as fast as the dog had done. But unlike the dog it was floor-bound and unable to leap. So when it was three feet away, I leaped myself, high in the air to land with a thump on the tiles behind it. It turned at the new noise, completing the turn even before it had stopped, and it charged again, the needle flickering faster. I jumped again. And again.
But its reaction speed was faster than mine and it was going to win. It had started with about fifteen feet to travel at me. Now I was barely off the ground before it was turned and charging towards me at each new thud of my feet on the tiles.
But there was something else in the arena, I remembered. The body of the dog was still lying where it had died, beneath the humming mesh of the fence. My wind was failing rapidly now and I was staying on the hop only painfully. I started manoeuvring myself towards the dog. It took three more agonising leaps to wrestle the jacket from my back, and a last, almost dying leap to land in front of the great burned corpse. The machine whirred and I side-stepped.
Its track brushed my tr'ouser-cuff but its flickering fang buried itself deep, not in me, but into the animal. I dropped my coat around its listening turret, hoping to deafen it and slow its reactions. It worked. The thing pulled its fang out of the dog and swivelled confusedly on its tracks.
And all this time, I had been hanging onto one of Angie's hairpins, hooked around my sweating finger. I took my very last leap over its skeetering shell. I also took a big chance on the thing's voltage as I rammed the ends of the wire up its little twin rectum. But the crepe of my Desert Creeps stood up to the shock and all I got was a tingle. I cautiously removed my coat from its listening turret. Nothing happend. The brute was short-circuited out of action.
For a moment there was silence, broken only by my hard, painful breathing. Then titters began to run around the gallery. While I was at it, I kicked in the thing's knobbed eye. It remained motionless. Its fang, no longer flickering, dripped thick, brown fluid onto the tiles. And I got my encore. The titters fast turned into jeers.
'He's goosed it,'jeered a voice.
'The Russian goose,' jeered another. 'The commy bastard.' 'He's rammed a bit of wire up its arse,' screamed a Cardiff tart.
'The thing's gone stiff with ecstasy.' 'Like father, like son, eh Professor?' 'Wouldn't he do that to you, then?'
I looked up at the gallery. The jeers grew louder and Ball's face grew whiter and tighter with a nasty mixture of rage and humiliation.
I realised, a minute or two later, that this was where I might have made a break. They had forgotten me and I was hopping with adrenalin, hair bristling, eyes dilated and ready to go. But my bloody glands are only half functional. I have the fight bit only, in times of crisis. My flight syndrome is retarded, which is why, I suppose, I ever listened to the fat man in the first place.
Still, I would never have made it. Hopping around the arena like a terrified pogo stick had left my adrenalin very little to work on, and for the moment it was quite enough to feel the ground firm beneath my two big feet.
Up in the gallery Fluck was talking hard to Ball, and as I watched he shrugged and flounced off. Ball leaned over the edge, looking down at me with his rage-distorted face. Someone up there, I thought, hates me. All the boffin's lanky, lady-like ease had gone. It was only skin-deep. And like many queers, all there was underneath was a cold, terrifying, gigantic malice.
'You bastard,' he said, the words hissing down at me like bullets of ice. 'You bastard.' He tried to say more. His mouth worked but no words came. Until Fluck appeared at his side. He spoke quietly, but Ball turned and cut the palm of his hand viciously across Fluck's face.
'Get away,' he screamed. 'Get away from me. Clear the hall. Get away, all of you.' He wrenched a pistol from Fluck and turned away.
Fluck shrugged again and began shepherding the silent crowd away from the gallery. Some of them wanted to stay, but Fluck called up the squad of goons from outside my arena and soon the hall was silent and empty. Ball continued to stare at me, nursing his pistol and regarding me with the fixed, unwinking stare of insanity. This went on for sometime. He occasionally muttered something secret. A speck of foam was formina on his lip.
Perhaps, I thought, all the boifins and all-the tycoons in the world are teetering on the knife's edge. And all the politicians too, and all the money-men and all the television idols and all the advertising men. As well as that fat, scrabbling, know-it-all bastard in Addison Road, Humphrey Bogart's gone, I thought, and Richard Burton's married. Perhaps there's nobody left but Big John Wayne and me. If I ever get out of this, I thought, I'll buy myself a motor-caravan, a rubber woman, a bicycle pump and some Horlick's tablets and I'll get away from it all. Into the middle of the Gobi Desert, maybe. Or Cheltenham.
Then Ball's oscillator box whined again and the next machine came snuffling out of the tunnel. And the next and the one after that too. I stood too still to count them. Fluck must have had them all lined up for demonstration before he was dismissed. They were all differently equipped from the first one. One had great serrated steel callipers, like a Giacommeti lobster, the next waved some sort of mumbling, blood-freezing grinders and another had slashing knives like Boadicea herself. They all had different sorts of radar too, and I stood holding my breath, waiting for them to sense even the heat of the sweat of my fear.
They snuffled, like the first one, around the edge of the arena and took up their positions at intervals around the fence, wait-. a g patiently for me to move or scream or faint. I was about to sing my swan song when another voice sang
sweeter.
"Brock,' it said. I looked up and almost did for myself as the brutes milled around me. It was Steve, wrestling with Ball on
! edge of the gallery. She threw something towards me and I ciught it as I jumped. It was Ball's little oscillator box. I rr^sed the button desperately and the eerie whistle stopped the machines dead. I looked at the nearest one. It was the slasher. I had been less than ten seconds, I reckoned, from slices.
I looked up again. Ball's back was towards me and he was beating madly at Steve's head and shoulders. As I watched, though, Steve's head disappeared and I thought she had been beaten into the ground, forgetting that she must have been taught by Provis. She was grabbing Ball's legs to tip him over the edge of the gallery. He screamed as he toppled and thumped onto the tiles. Then he lay still.
'Good girl,' I said. 'Come and switch my fence off. Then we'll sort the place out.'
She was already on her way and ten seconds later I was outside. Ugh, I thought, looking at the mad menagerie as I closed the gate behind me, thank God for Steve. No one, not even Jimmy Greaves, could have dribbled his way through that lot.
Ball was stirring now. He groaned. I still had the oscillator box in my hand, and in an almost reflex action I switched the fence on again and pressed the button. The machines clicked back into life. Ball saw them and scrambled whimpering to his feet. He should have stayed still and silent, but he started to run towards me. His outstretched hand touched the live wire of the fence-gate just before the first machine reached him.
'Come along,' I said to Steve and rushed her into the shadows before she had any time to take in the wet, smoking pile of meat behind the gate.
'You'll have to help me get Provis,' she said as she came.
T will,' I said, 'and don't worry. He's a very big boy.'
'But I heard them talking,' she said. 'That big Taffy. He was laughing about what they are doing to him.'
She shuddered. I remembered the Germans who had dragged the big man away twenty-four hours ago, and I wondered if we would ever see him again.
'Don't worry,' I said again. 'We'll get to him. But first we'll have to start a bit of action here.'
'How do you mean?' she said.
'I don't know yet,' I said.
All I had to do, of course, was to find Angie. I rummaged around, hoping to find some sort of weapon. A hydrogen bomb, maybe, or a couple of vats of boiling oil. Anything at all.
T have a pistol,' said Steve, offering me a needle gun. 'Ball dropped it upstairs.'
I took it, paused, and noticed some curious rods stacked at the end of the rubber tunnel that led into the arena. I picked one of them up. It was the size of a golf-club, about the same weight, and there was a rubber grip at one end, while the other end was forked into two complicated terminals. I thought for a moment. There had to be some way of transporting Ball's mad mechanical monsters. Perhaps this was it.
'Hang on,' I said, and walked back to the arena, switched off the fence and used the oscillating box to freeze the machines. I chose the slasher, dragged it out past the obscene pile of meat that had been a boffin and closed the gates and switched the fence back on. I inserted the pronged end of my rod into the thing's twin rectum and pushed. It did not move. I gingerly pressed the button on my box. The thing whirred into life. I pushed again and it responded. The terminals on the end of my rod had short-circuited the killer's attack mechanism leaving it harmlessly mobile. I hoped. Now I could push it around with me like a tame lawn-mower.
'Look,' I said to Steve. 'I'm going upstairs to cause trouble. I have to get my girl and it might be rough. So you stay here out of sight. At the first chance, get out of here and back to Cardiff. I'll get Provis, I promise.' I gave her the gun and showed her how to use it. 'Shoot anyone who comes near you,' I said. 'Except me.'
I took my tame robot, and pushed it ahead of me. Its wide caterpillar tracks took the stairs, easily and silently, its knives dripping the last drops of Ball's blood onto Lleweliyn's carpet. At the top of the stairs I paused and heard the noise of the continuing party loud from behind a door at the far end of the gallery. The gallery itself was still completely deserted and I realised with shock that no more than six or seven minutes at "he most had passed since Ball had cleared the arena in his blazingpique.
I pushed my machine down to where the noise was and stood beside the door. The music was full volume and a woman was singing out of tune against it. But the cacophony was almost drowned by the sluttish shrieks of the women and the thick, rutting grunts of the men.
Then the door opened. One of the Welsh hulks reeled through it, dragging a little giggling woman. One shoulder of her dress was torn down and she wore no brassiere. They walked past me. The man looked at me through glazed, uncomprehending eyes. He stopped and blinked. I left my machine and went for him. He was too drunk to lift a finger and he went down like the Titanic. The woman leaned against the wall, still giggling.
'I like that,' she said. 'Do that to me, will you?'
But there was no need. I looked through the pockets of the hulk and found his pistol. Then I took my machine, kicked open the door and pointed my pistol at the wall above head height. I kept my finger on the button and sprayed the wall with little craters. There Was a sudden silence. The shrieking and the laughing and the clinking and the grunting ended, but a melody lingered on. Desafinado, it was. Stan Getz just never gives up. I looked around me.
Except for Tonypandy Williams, Breumann, Llewellyn and of course, Ball, they all seemed to be there, all staring drunkenly at me and frozen into groups, some interesting, others fairly revolting. Schneider, to give him credit, was standing in a lonely corner, waiting, I supposed, for Steve to come back. Silverstein's wet moon-face peered apprehensively over a fat, naked white shoulder, his mouth frozen open like a hyena caught in the act. Fluck had cosied right up to Sullivan, hoping to drive Ball mad with jealousy, I supposed. Little did he know.
There was another of the Welsh hulks standing near me, less drunk or more methodist than the rest. I motioned him over and after a while he came. I pressed the muzzle of my pistol hard into the side of his neck and moved him back over the threshold of the door. Then I pulled the prong from my robot's rectum and slammed the door sharply. From within, I heard only silence for a moment. Then a stupid woman screamed. Then more screams. No sniggers at all this time. The slasher was having a ball.
I shoved the Taffy hard against the wall. The woman was still there and she giggled again.
'Where's Breumann?' I said. The Taffy said nothing. I had no time to waste. I slashed him across the face, using every last ounce of my strength. His blood poured fast and he spoke in a shocked, whispering groan.
'Next floor,' he said. 'To the left, first door.' Then he fainted.
The woman giggled again.
'Please do it to me,' she said. 'Oh, please.'
But by then I was on the next gallery and into the first door on the left. I closed it behind me. Breumann was there, his back towards me. He was leaning over the bed. Angie was on the bed.
'Go away,' he said, in his thick, bubbling English. Then he looked around and saw me. There was no flicker of expression on his fat, yellow face but he straightened up, watching the pistol in my hand.
1 waved him away until he was standing against a piece of bare wall. Then I moved around the room to where I could cover him and look at Angie. She was spreadeagled on the bed, thin leather thongs stretching her arms and legs wide. But she was still clothed. She looked terrified, but unharmed.
'Are you all right?' I said. She nodded weakly.
'You hurt him when you jumped on him downstairs,' she said, 'and he had to rest. That's why he tied me up. Then a German came to massage him.' She shuddered. 'I had to watch.'
I untied the thongs and she sat up on the bed, wincing at the
Eain of movement. Then she pulled down her skirt and smoothed er hair. I looked around the room. A leather case was lying open on the table and beside it an array of rubber, leather and wooden tools. I have seen such tools at Scotland Yard and I felt sick with relief. There was also a dirty glass beside a flask and a small metallic cylinder with a rubber nozzle. 'What's this?'I said.
'He poured what looked like milk into the glass,' said Angie, 'and bubbled some sort of gas through it from the cylinder.' I picked up the cylinder and pressed the nozzle. It hissed and I smelled the smell of ordinary coal-gas, I think. I looked at the obscene man.
T have not harmed the girl,' he said. He must have seen the loathing in my face but there was still no expression in his voice or in his eyes. 'I wished only to give her pleasure.*
'We're getting out of here,' I said to Angie. 'Do you feel up to it?'
'Yes,' she said. 'I could do with a drink though.'
I rummaged around and found another flask. It was loaded and I tested it. It was real, straightforward, ordinary brandy, so I let her have a stiff snort and took one myself. She-wiped the tears from her eyes and I told her to stand by the dcor„
'Are you going to kill him?' she said.
'I hope not,' I said. 'We don't have the.time to do it the way I'd like.'
'My hero,' she said. Brandy beats the absorption barrier and sets to the bloodstream even quicker than Aspro. And it certainly brings relief.
'This is neither the time nor the place,' I said. I threw Breumann onto the floor and bound his wrists to his ankles with his kinky leather thongs, twisting them as tightly as possible. Then I stuffed his face-flannel, that smelled obscenely of roses, into his mouth and bound that in place too. I heaved him under the bed and arranged the counterpane to hide him from view. With a little luck he would still be there when I had more time. Then I kicked him in the head for a little more luck and took Angie out onto the gallery. There was a lot of noise coming up from below.
I looked tentatively over the edge. Most of the party, it seemed, had got away from my slasher, but then, it wasn't fair to expect one little steel tortoise to cope alone with a couple of dozen hard cases. It had given a good account of itself though. Down through the open door, I could see Silverstein on the carpet, almost cut to pieces and now sweating blood. Several more of them too. But most were out in the gallery and the men were trying to calm the women. And the women were giving them hell, which has no fury like a Cardiff tart on the rampage. Stan Getz was still squirting it out of his long, long, long player and goons were streaming up the stairs from the hall. One of them saw me and snapped a shot. The needle zipped past me and exploded with a dull thud high in the roof.
I shoved Angie back. Far below me, the bright lights were still shining into the arena. The fence, I supposed, was still live. I took a quick look round the gallery to fix myself. Then I took a bead on the switchbox of the fence and carefully pressed the button. Thunder clapped, lightning sizzled, and all the lights went out. There were shouts and cries of panic from below. Then flames began to flicker. Fortunately, the great gothic joke of a hall was bursting with carved woodwork, all gleaming with varnish and ready for a real cosy blaze.
The stairs were now full of goons and I sprayed a couple of sprays of needles into the darkness, hitting, I was glad to hear, three or four at least. But it was time to go, so I pulled Angie along the gallery away from the stairs. There had to be another set of stairs if only for the flunkies and I had fixed, before the lights went out, on a small, double-hinged door in the corner. I was right. The growing flicker of the blaze below showed an iron staircase spiralling down into blackness.
Before we went down, I took another look over the edge. The flames were catching nicely, lighting up the silly great pipe organ in the hall. Well, I thought, the blood is spurting, the fires are lit. John Carradine, you should be here.
I stood at the ,top of the stairs and listened, but nothing stirred so we went round and round and down and down into the blackness. All the action and all the noise was happening in the front of the house. It was a long way down, so I stopped on the way to kiss Angie, for medicinal purposes only. She responded for a moment then stiffened. 'For God's sake,' she said.
But it did me good, and we soon came down to ground level into a large, moonlit kitchen, gleaming from top to tail with Llewellyn's perks, all white enamel and enough knobs and dials to fly a Comet. The treasures, I supposed, that Llewellyn's men were developing for Mrs 1970's grandchildren. Then I remembered what he had in store for their grandmother. I fingered a streamlined hotplate cautiously but it neither bit me nor blew me into little pieces.
Perhaps Llewellyn was upstairs frying. But it was unlikely. From the look of distaste on his face each time he was forced to recognise the kinks of his councillors, he probably makes himself very scarce, I thought, whenever they give themselves a party.
And, of course, time was flying. There were two doors out of the room. One led back to the front of the house so I left that one closed. The other led into a yard. I went to a window. Perhaps the fire was taking up everyone's energy. But the moonlight glinted on a silver pistol barrel and I ducked back into a corner with Angie. I took her hand in mine. She massaged my thumb for a moment. What a gorgeous girl. I heard bells.
Then bells stopped, and almost immediately the door was kicked in. Two huge black shapes rolled in, with huge, smooth, gleaming heads.
I raised my gun to shoot but a bright light swung around the room and dazzled me blind.
'Come on, man,' said one of the shapes.'Don't you know, for God's sake, the bloody place is alight?'
'Dew, man,' said the other, 'putting out the bloody fires is easy. It's the bloody people that bloody start them that makes the bloody trouble.'
< 'Oh, don't be too hard on them, lanto,' said the first shape, 'in shock they are, perhaps.'
They came and laid gentle hands on us, but I was not afraid. I had recognised their fearsome, shining heads as good, old-fashioned brass helmets.
'What is it, Rhys?' said the second fireman. 'Slap their faces, was it? Is that what they said in the training?'
'No,' I said. 'We're all right now. Lead on and we will follow.'
'Good boy,' he said. 'This way.'
He strode across the room and smashed the outside door with his axe. I think the key was in the lock and there was no particular hurry anyway. The room was as cool as a dairy and not the flicker of a flame in sight.
They led us out into the safety of the yard.
'Bloody good, Rhys,' said lanto. 'Bloody good axes they just issued.'
'Bloody good,' said Rhys.
Out of the shadow, where I had seen the gleam of a pistol, stepped a black-suited goon. He waved his gun and spewed out a stream of German. lanto smashed him over the head with the axe.
'Merciful God,' said Rhys. 'You've done him in, man.'
'No, I haven't,' said lanto. 'Used the flat of the blade, I did. What do you take me for, man?'
Rhys walked over and examined the body. He straightened up, relieved.
'Some sort of foreigner, by the sound of his breathing,' he said. 'Must have been up to no good.'
'Must have been,' said lanto. 'Remember that Norwegian off the docks, when he put a bloody match to Madame Gwenllian Morgan Ellis?'
'He wasn't no Norwegian,' said Rhys, 'he was Scandinavian.'
'That's right, man,' said lanto. 'I remember now. A real split-them-down-the-middle bastard, he was.' He looked at the German on the ground. 'Bloody good axes, these,' he said. Then he remembered us.
'Come along now,' said Rhys gently. 'Nothing to worry about. The fire is well under control and everything will be all right.'
'Nothing at all will harm you,' said lanto. 'If you see a beam falling then run like bloody hell.'
They led us gently away, and. I had a hard time persuading ihem that Angie needed no hot soup and no warm blankets. But at last they left us and disappeared into the cool darkness on the safe side of the house, looking for more survivors to rescue and more doors to smash. Not all Welshmen are bastards.
We sidled around to the front of the house. Half the fire-engines in Glamorganshire were pumping away on the lawn and enough water was pouring on and around Castell Coch to uncover all the drowned villages in Wales. Scores of happy firemen were rushing about in transports of delight, causing at least as much damage as the flames, and marshalling Llewellyn's nwilling forces into helpless huddles of safety under the trees, pushing the men and carrying the women, taking a good Welsh handful as they went.
lanto, or maybe it was Rhys, strode past me into the shrubbery, loaded to his watermark with a cargo of soft, fat blonde. And in the middle of the lawn, Fluck, his golden hair glinting masterfully in the flames, was remonstrating with the chief fireman who was nodding soothingly and signalling to a pair of his men. They jumped to it and led Fluck gently back into the crowd.
Then a huge black car screamed up the drive. It made the last bend on two wheels and Llewellyn got out as black and angry as a Rhondda sunset. In about two seconds he had the chief fireman jumping and the goons on the march. But by then, Angie and I were halfway down to the gate.
We walked up the road towards the pub with the beastly, brackish beer. Its door was open, streaming lamplight across the road in which we could see a couple of parked cars. Any copper will tell you how to start a car without the ignition key, but beside the cars, the landlord and his few customers were also standing in the road, glasses in hand and silently contemplating the flames of Castell Coch.
'Ah, well,' I said. 'We'll have a drink and phone for a taxi.'
Angie looked at me. 'You'd better smarten yourself up a bit,' she said. 'They'll think you've been fighting.'
'It's all right for you to talk,' I said. 'You've been lying on your back all day.' I did what I could. I straightened my tie and combed my hair. My trouser leg was torn and the cloth was stiff with dried blood where the machine had slashed me. But what the hell, it was a free house, not the Strand Palace.
The landlord followed us in and examined us in the light of his cold, thankless bar. He recognised me.
'Work you hard up the television, then?' he said.
'You can see that for yourself,' I said. 'What's happening up there? Is it a fire?'
'Yes,' he said. 'They say they're having a party. Funny party if you ask me. It's those bloody great dogs again, I say.'
'They put his bitch in the family way,' I said to Angie, and asked him for two large cognacs and a telephone.
He gave me two small Italian brandies. 'That's all I got,' he said. 'And there's no telephone either.'
'But I want a taxi,' I said.
'Where are you going?' he said.
'Barry,'I said.
'Walk,'he said.
'I'm in a hurry,' I said.
'You television people,' he said. 'Always on the run. I don't know why. The bloody programmes are slow enough.'
'It's my wife,' I said. 'She has to go to hospital.'
'What's wrong with her then?' he said.
'A boy, I hope,' I said. 'She wants a girl, though.'
Angie twitched beside me and she tried to push out her gorgeous belly like Mrs Arnolfini.
'Oh,' he said. 'Got a bun in the oven have you? Well, John
Evans is only just arrived, so I can't ask him. Not going to take my custom, you are. But Tommy Walters out there is on his fifth pint and he never has no more than five on a Friday. I suppose he can take you. I'll ask him.'
He shuffled out from behind his bar. Then he looked at Angie and stopped. 'Wait a minute,' he said. 'She don't look on the nest.'
'It's early,' I said.
'Oh,' he said. 'She'll have a hard time then. All this fast living, I suppose.' He looked at our glasses. 'And drinking.' He shuffled on out and we picked up our untouched glasses. It was the roughest brandy I had ever tasted. It scorched a trail down my gullet and started a fire in my guts.
The landlord came back. 'He don't mind,' he said. 'Mad generous he is, when he's had a few.' He looked at our empty glasses. 'Another?'
Angie was still coughing. 'No,' I said. 'I'll need to keep a cool head.' The landlord lost interest.
Then Tommy Walters came in, reeking of his five pints of black and tan. He beamed at Angie, grunted something happy, linked his arms in oufs and reeled us through the door. His car was a big, crumbling Ford Pilot, the kind they use in stock car racing. It was coloured racing green, in fact, in patches. He packed us into the back and slid behind the wheel. The car was off before he had the door closed.
'Goes like a bomb,' he said over his shoulder.
'Sounds like one,' I said. 'This is the way to Cardiff. We wanted to go to Barry.'
'Short cut,' he said. It was all for the best though, I saw when I looked through the rear window. Llewellyn must have sorted them out like an enema. Already, one of the heavy patrol cars from the Bendricks was rolling up to the pub, its lights sweeping the sides of the road. It may not have actually stopped us, but Tommy Walters would certainly have driven into it.
We were bucketing up the Cardiff road and after too long we skidded into a steep tunnel of trees. Angie held on to me and I closed my eyes. His oil-sump was taking almost as much of the load as his tyres, but in a mercifully short while, we shot back onto the main road, now travelling in the opposite direction, just inside the fringes of Barry.
'You wouldn't believe it,' said Tommy Walters. 'That short cut is about exactly twice as far as from the Glebe House Hotel to Barry.'
'Where's the Glebe House Hotel?' I said. 'Where I picked you up, for God's sake,' he said. 'Which hospital?'
I had just seen a traffic sign flash past us, asking us to drive carefully as there was a hospital near by. 'This one,' I said. He stopped the car in about fifteen feet. It skidded another forty. He looked around, beaming.
'Just had the brakes done,' he said. 'I keep forgetting. You don't want this hospital, though. This is the Isolation, for scarlet fever and that.'
We were out of the car and onto firm ground. 'You can't be too careful,' I said, and we walked into the night. After a moment he revved up again and shot off down the hill.
'You didn't thank him,' said Angie.
'What for?' 1 said.
Far down below, in the town, Tommy Walters backfired like a hurt, Welsh fart.
We walked through the silent streets of the top end of Barry, up among the schoolmasters, I guessed, and the bank clerks. The houses were fully detached, but only just, highly priveted and dark. There must have been people in most of them but the curtains were too tightly drawn to let out any light at all, even to help the streetlamps, which were so weak that I could see the filaments plainly.
'Where are we going?' said Angie.
T want you to go to Cardiff,' I said. 'Take my little tin tag and wave it around until they listen. Then check into the Angel, have a bath, and wait for me.'
'What are you going to do?' she said.
We reached a telephone kiosk. I went in, dialled the operator and reversed the charges to Addison Road. It was Muir's turn to answer, but it might just as well have been Greene.
'Yes?' he said.
'It's me,' I said.
'You're not scrambled,' he said. 'No,' I said. 'I'm in a public box.* 'Get off the line,' he said.
'Wait a minute,' I said. 'I need some money and a couple of companies of commandos.'
'You drink too much, Brock,' he said. 'Get off the line and sober up.'
'Put me through to the fat man,' I said.
'That won't get you anywhere,' he said. 'He's in the middle of scrabble with Greene.' And he replaced the receiver.
I slammed down the telephone receiver into its cradle and broke it. Angie poked her head into the box.
'The teenagers'll get the blame for that,' she said. 'What's the matter?'
'The bastards,' I said.
'You've still got me,' she said.
'And I can even cope with that,' I said.
A big green bus was creeping towards us, and after peering closely at its dim, yellow destination, I bundled her across the road to the bus stop and gave her my remaining small change,, about ten shillings' worth.
'If this won't get you to Cardiff,' I said, 'you'll have to walk the rest. Get your weight down.'
She just had time to kiss me before the bus jerked forward. Then the conductor rang the bell and she was gone.
So there I was, alone and penniless. I looked down the hill, took a deep breath and set off for the Bendricks. Up there among the houses, it was as still and deserted as the small hours, but below me the bright lights of the fairground and the coloured lights of the docks reminded me that it was not yet ten o'clock. The pubs were still open and I needed a drink. But I- had no money. I kicked a gatepost, pretending it was Muir.
'Hey;' said a young male voice from a dark porch.
'There's dirty,' said a young female voice. 'He's peering at us. Chase him off, Jackie.' Nylon rustled, but I couldn't see a thing, thank God.
'No,' said Jackie, 'not now, Glenys. Come around the back, shall we?'
'Sorry,' I said and turned away. I tripped over Jackie's bicycle, I picked it up, pointed it down the hill, got on and pushed off.
'Sorry,' I said again, over my shoulder, but I don't think he heard.
It was one of the terrible racing bikes with a high saddle and hot water bottles on the handlebars. It was too light for comfort and too bloody fast, too, and I shot down the hill with my rump in the air sending all the blood down to my head. The hill got steeper as it went and I squeezed both the brakes. They didn't work. I looked ahead. The hill was leading me straight down to the main shopping street. I once stopped a runaway bicycle by poking my foot through the front spokes but I was younger then, and braver. This time I sat tight and waited, and everything almost came. But a bed of red geraniums broke my fall.
I got up, dusted myself down and walked shakily into the main street. It was brighter down there than at the top of the town. The shop windows were still lit up and there was still a little traffic from which I hoped to thumb a lift to the Bendricks. I walked past a Halford's and winced at the row of racing cycles in its window, then I crossed the road smartly. Walking up the street towards me were two big black-suited goons, obviously on the prowl.
I nipped up a narrow side street- and paused in a pool of shadow to watch while they passed. Then I saw a policeman walking down towards me. I started hopefully to meet him. But he stopped. The goons spoke to him. He shook his head. The goons spoke some more and he nodded obediently. The coppers were after me too, by the look of it. I could have sorted it all out back at the station, of course, but I remembered the man Reece in Cardiff. Life is never long enough to cope with coppers.
So when the policeman and the goons had resumed their patrols and were well away, I stepped out down the road, past the Woolworths, the Boots, the Burtons, the Times Furnishing and a Home and Colonial with a window of striped, cut-price cake. On a corner was a tobacconist, its dark doorway filled with a cigarette machine. I needed a smoke badly and stopped for a moment to search through my pockets, hoping for a stray half-crown:
From the black space behind the machine stepped two more goons, one each side of me. They pulled me around the corner into the dark and I dropped one of them with an elbow in his gut and a wild smash across my shoulder. But the other one had his pistol out. I grabbed his wrist desperately with both my hands and bent his arm upwards. A spray of needles shot out, over niy head and up into the night.
His other fist was smashing against my head as he fought to bring his pistol back down into my chest. It was coming down slowly, too, for he was stronger than me, I think. But I didn't want to die just then, and found the extra ounce somewhere. His finger was clamped on the firing button and needles were spraying around us like Monsieur Hulot's holiday, a lot into the sky, but more, as the gun wavered up and down, exploding with dull thuds into the buildings opposite. Then there was a great crash- and clatter of plate glass as a batch of needles sprayed at the rate of one hundred and twenty a minute, I remembered from the instruction sheet back at the Bendricks, across the shops on the other side of the road.
I kneed him in the crutch and for a moment all the resistance went out of him. My weight bent his arm back over his shoulder. I chopped the pistol from his hand, and on the return blow smashed into the deadspot between jawbone and throat. I swivelled instantly into a crouch in case the other one was back on his feet. But a spray of wild needles had crossed him. He was almost cut in half.
I looked up and down the street. The noise of breaking glass had attracted what few people there were and they were hurrying on down. I was not yet spotted around my dark corner, but the first pair of goons were loping up towards me, and so, from the other direction, was the policeman. Then one of the armoured tourers appeared round a bend in the road and I nipped closer into the shadow.
I needed a smoke even more now, so I quickly patted down the unmutilated goon for a pack of German cigarettes and his lighter. He had no money, I was sorry to discover. Perhaps his mate carried some petty cash, but he was bleeding too lavishly for me.
The side street I was in was a wide one and sloped away from the lights of the shops into darkness. I remembered it from my tour of the town, two long days before. It was the way into the docks and it was filled with marine stores and good pull-ups for sailors. Against the dim light of the street lamps, I saw a few figures walking towards me and my commotion. I started towards the docks, trying to look as though I was not hurrying.'
But when I was about halfway along, another Alleiec car turned up from the docks. I looked behind me. By now the goons had found the bodies of their mates, and some reinforcements, too. They were out in strength in Barry that night, and all for me. I watched four of them start my way, two on each side of the street, looking in doorways as they came. So I turned into the next cafe and slumped down in the darkest corner.
The place was wavering in the light of a gas jet with a broken mantle and the windows were opaque with untouchable grime. There was a counter, and on it a great metal urn, its tap dripping dark brown liquid onto the peeling oilcloth. On shelves behind were plates of snacks out of a nightmare, bowls of thick, ugly-coloured mush, jars of pink lumps in pink fluid and a tray of curling pancakes growing green fungus. There was also a small barrel of black, frothy slime in which something was floating. The whole place smelled of chutney and it was empty.
I lit a cigarette, took a lungful of coarse, German smoke almost gratefully and put the packet down on the table in front of me. I huddled into my dark corner hoping I looked like a lascar on the town. Behind the counter'a door opened and a faceful of foreign teeth looked out. It disappeared and there was a chitter of laughter from within. Then a brown man came out and leaned on the counter.
'Hallo, Charlie,' he said. 'You like big eats, hey?'
I shook my head.
'Come on Charlie,' he said. 'You hungry. Good big eats here. Real meat only.' He waved a bowl of mush. It slopped gobbets of something. I shook my head again.
'Oh, dear me, Charlie,' he said. 'What you want, then?' He came from behind the bar and over to my corner. Below the blue vest and dungaree jacket that had been visible above the counter, he was wearing, instead of trousers, a "grubby white sheet draped around his middle and gathered through his thin brown legs. He picked up the German's cigarettes and showed all his teeth in a sharp oriental snigger.
'Aha, Charlie,' he said. T see. You German Charlie from the docks, hey? You want my sister? Which one you like, hey? You not come here, before.'
I started to shake my head when I saw, through the one eye that I had kept firmly on the window, the hulking shadows of goons, paused outside the cafe. So I nodded.
'Good boy, Charlie,' said the brown man. 'You come this way.'
He led me behind the bar and out of sight just as the street door jangled open.
'You wait here, Charlie,' said the brown man, and went back into the shop.
I still had my pistol. I got it out of my pocket and into my belt where it lay cold against my skin, pointing down my stomach. I shivered, for there was no safety catch. I strained to listen but the brown man had carefully closed the door and all I could hear was the grunting of the goons and the high-pitched answers of the brown Indian. Then they all laughed and the door jangled again. The brown man came back smiling.
'Good boy, Charlie,' he said. 'Your friend, he says have a nice, lovely time.'
He led me down a passage and through a greasy bead curtain into a small back room. He bowed me to a chair on which I sat myself, for I was certainly stuck there until the goons had done the rest of the street. The brown man was pouring two tiny cups of pink drink.
'Good drink, Charlie,' he said. 'Different taste for you.' I sipped it and it tasted of chutney.
'Now, Charlie,' said the brown man. 'You want good time, hey? You better be very strong too, Charlie. My sister, she is very beautiful like the new moon, and very, very soft like the flower of mustard. You like that, hey?'
I shook my head again. The brown man opened his mouth in astonishment. 'Oh, ho, ho, Charlie,' he said. 'This is very good, •very good. You want all of my sisters, hey?' He laughed and laughed and moved his hands in oriental delight. 'You no little Welsh boy, Charlie, and that's a fact.'
He fluttered up and darted, like a dingy humming-bird, across the room to a hatch in the wall, opened it and loosed a long stream of chitter upwards. Then he darted at me and took my hand in his.
'Come, Charlie,' he said. 'Come quick to the little garden of delights in my back bedroom, hey?'
I had neither the time nor the money. I shook my head again, turned my back on the hurt family pride in his eyes and went through the greasy passage and the jangling bead curtains into the shop. When I poked my head through the front door there were no goons visible so I cut quick across the road and up the first dark turning.
I walked on into a maze of black little back streets between the docks on my left and the bright main road above me. The further I went the darker it got. Some of the doors were open, letting a solid darkness out of the cabbage-smelling passages into the narrow terraces. There was noise, too. Most of the children of the district were in bed and all of them were crying, and as I walked I heard the roar of the male and the yelp of the female. Down the black tunnel from an open door I saw the flicker of a naked gas jet. Or a camp fire. But the hyenas were not howling nor was there the throbbing of jungle drums. Then I paused to wonder which was the way ahead and a voice beside me shook the darkness.
'And another thing,' it said, as ioud as the last black trumpet of all.
T beg your pardon?' I said.
'Not you, mate,' said the voice. 'That bitch upstairs.' The man spat and I saw him, sitting on the doorstep, wearing a dirty vest.
'What do you mean, another thing?' screamed a woman's voice from above, equally loud as her man's but filtered.thickly through dirty blankets and all the odours of living. 'There isn't anything else where you're concerned. Nothing else at all."
'What's up,' said the man to me. 'Are you one of those eavesdroppers, then?'
'What eavesdroppers?' I said.
T don't know,' he said. 'Any eavesdroppers.'
'If it's not that bloody Blodwen,' screamed the woman within. 'She's another thing all right. I'll give you that.'
'She only wanted to learn snooker, I keep on telling you,' shouted the man. Then he looked at me and brought his voice down a few decibels. 'What's up then?' he said.
'I'm lost,' I said. T want to get to the Bendricks.'
'Ah,' he said. 'I see.'
'What's that you say?' screamed the woman, from within. 'I'm not talking to you,' the man shouted. 'You silly-born bitch.'
'Say that again,' screamed the woman. 'You sillyTborn bitch,' he shouted. 'Say that again.'
'You silly-born bitch,' he spat again and sighed. 'You'll want the bus, won't you?' he said to me. 'Penarth bus. You'll get that up the Square, won't you?'
'Will I?'I said.
'And you want me to marry you?' screamed the woman. 'You foulmouthed bastard.'
'Keep your voice down, for Christ's sake,' shouted the man, like Armageddon. 'You want to wake the bleeding kids?'
'The Penarth bus,' I said. 'Thank you.'
'A pleasure, mate,' he said. 'Lovely warm night, isn't it?'
'Who you got out there?' screamed the woman. 'It's that bloody Blodwen again;''
And I walked on, over the road and up to the main street.
The Square was no more than the cracked tarmac roof of the set of underground lavatories which was holding up the council offices, but slap in its middle was a pair of goons back to back like, empty bookends, one looking up ahead along the road, one
looking down. I ducked back into the dark and hoped that they would go. But they were still there when the Penarth bus rolled up the road and I finally got aboard by belting up the middle of the road on its off-side, hidden from the goons but exposed to the oncoming traffic. Then I landed on the platform with a breathless thump that may have broken the springs. If Welsh buses have springs.
When I was breathing cool again I climbed the stairs and took the front seat, for I had no money for the fare. The bus jerked on, not nearly far enough before the conductor clunked up the stairs towards me, but as I was wondering just how long I would continue to fumble in my pocket for the fare, the bus stopped beside a pub, and a crowd of drunks jostled aboard.
'Hang on, mate,' said the conductor. 'I'll have to sort that little lot out. Every night is party night at the Palais. You get your kicks on Route Sixty-six.' He waited for me to laugh, like all bus conductors everywhere.
When he came back we were out of the houses and into the dark, well on the way, with any luck, to the Bendricks.
'Right, mate,' he said. 'Where to?'
'Cowbridge,' I said. 'A single to Cowbridge.' This was the only place towards which I was sure we were not heading. 'This bus, mate,' he said, 'is going to Penarth.' 'It says Cowbridge on the front,' I said.
*It does not,' he said, and we made ourselves a long, hot discussion, all about illiterate passengers on his side and illegitimate conductors on mine. I threatened to take his number. He told me it wouldn't get me anywhere and threatened to strike me if it did. Then he did strike. He rang the bell and stopped the bus.
'Get off my bus,' he said.
'Where are we?' I said.
'Nowhere,' he said, 'and we're not going anywhere else with you on the bus.'
'I haven't paid my fare,' I said.
'I wouldn't "take your money, mate, with a dirty bleeding bargepole,' he said, so I got off and the bus moved on into the dark. Getting a free ride is hard on the emotions.
I could have waited for the next bus and gone through the whole exercise again, but the lights of Allelec were shining ahead of me and I walked on. I walked in the ditch beside the road, for there was much traffic, a lot of it Allelec traffic. I saw not only the odd patrol car off to help look for me, but streams of big green lorries, long-distance lorries loaded down, by the sound of their labouring engines, with heavy loads. Or heavy goons, I thought.
And soon I was skirting the bright, busy works looking for a way in. The steel fence along the opposite side of the road was too high, too sharp, and I was sure, too switched-on to climb.
t
161
Then I came to the main gate, lit up like a cinema and swarming with guards. Security had stepped itself up to fever pitch by the look of things, and beyond the gate the whole area was hopping with activity.
I looped through the field opposite and walked on, wondering how I was going to get in, hoping, I suppose, for a helicopter to drop out of the sky. Or Thunderbird 3. Nothing at all came down to help me but right at the end of the Allelec perimeter, where the main road narrowed and forked off the way to Cardiff, 3 came upon a pool of hopeful confusion, roaring lights, shining fngines, shouting horns and tooting men. A huge articulated transport lorry was holding up the traffic, trying to negotiate the narrow bend in the road, backing and advancing a foot at a time. It was painted bright Allelec green and two big black-suits were directing the operation. Another one was sweating at the wheel trying to point the great vehicle down the road towards the main gate.
So in the noise and confusion I climbed up on the back which was empty save for a tall scaffold construction, one of the self-elevating towers repairmen use to repair high cables. I climbed quietly right up to the flimsy platform on top, high in the dark above the noise and I stood in the corner, thinking thin and trying to look like the shadow of an iron rail. And after a while the lorry made it. The goons made their last victory sign, the waiting traffic gave its last angry toot and I was riding slowly down the road towards the gate, as high in the air as any carnival queen. And twice as nervous.

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
When we got to the guardhouse the outer gate slid up and we trundled inside. The gate came down again with a clunk and we were penned while the guards went over the lorry. After they had double-checked it, and poked the canvas coverings and looked through the driver's papers and shone their lights under the chassis and almost everywhere else except up my tower, they waved us on. I was able to relax and listen.
'What's up, then?' my driver was saying.
'You'd better get a move on,' said the guard. I looked carefully down. Seen from above he was just a round black slug. But he cast a long black shadow and I thought even thinner.
'But what's up?' said the driver again. 'We're only empty from Brum, for Christ's sake. What's all the panic?'
'Just you get on with it,' said the guard. 'Maximum security, there is. And another job waiting for you there is, too, so like I said, get moving.'
'We just done twenty bloody hours with no bloody sleep and you bloody stand there and say we got another bloody job. Not bloody likely, mate.'
'Well, you go and say that to Mr Williams, then, not me,' said the guard. 'He's over there in Control. But I'll tell you now, he's on the rampage tonight.'
'He's always on the bloody rampage, he is.'
'Not like this, he's not,' said the guard. 'Jesus, never like this.'
The inner gate lifted and we rolled on into the area. I had to think about getting down off my pedestal, a problem which has exercised greater minds than mine. Some wait until their pedestals sink back into the sands on which they are built, others just think themselves down to sea-level. Others get chopped off at the knees. Take Al Bowlly, the greatest crooner since the Song of Solomon. He had his pedestal bombed from under him before he knew he was on it. And whatever happened to Don Ameche?
But I was high above the lights below and things were happening. So I got down the way the sex symbols do it. I closed my eyes and jumped.
While I was "thinking my home-spun thoughts, the lorry had slowed almost to a standstill in order to negotiate the great circuit-breaker we had been shown earlier in the week, the apple of Twynham's eye, the fat steel mammoth in the red steel paddock towering in the middle of the works ready to bang. My own tower was swinging close to its dark topworks as the lorry inched around it. So I jumped.
And then I was dangling from the slippery knob of a big insulator. I got a kneehold and a less dubious grip, hugging the curbed white porcelain and feeling like Pygmalion before he got lucky, and half the area was mapped out below me, bright roadways bustling with traffic and punctuated with guards on patrolling tricycles. Loaded trucks were coming out of the big shed like bees off to clover and away on my right in a pool of limelight, more goons were marching as to war, neatly up ramps into trucks. Llewellyn's savage hordes were hopping.
Then I felt the humming that I had been ignoring. The top of the huge mechanism onto which I was hanging was a mass of thick black cables leading everywhere into the night, and the humming was the humming of a million volts. A lot of power was going out of Allelec, I thought. Or coming in. The air all around me was crackling too, crackling with ozone. Not Doctor Brighton's euphoric effluvium but the red, red smell of high-powered danger.
I started down. The easiest way is up, of course,- as any cinema-goer knows, but that would get me nowhere. It was a very short climb as climbs go, and as climbs go I nearly went. But I. did my full nightclimbing course in the city of dreaming causes, and if you have no head for heights and a nose for danger, climbing in the dark is the only way. Nevertheless, Christ's College needle was never like this. Less electrifying altogether. But after ten years of sudden death I got down without frying myself. I was on the ground in the dark, ready to go.
And this is another of the problems of our time. Not where to go but how to get there. I knew where to go. I wanted Provis; Tonypandy would tell me. And Tonypandy Williams was in the Control building, look you. But every time I poked my head out of my pool of shadow, I had to nip it back again quick, out of the way of a goon or a lorry. I pressed back against the concrete plinth on which the circuit-breaker was built and I edged my way around it. Headlights were lighting up my form intermittently as I moved, and they also lit up a tangle of steel-clad cables burrowing down from the lines above. I remembered then what Llewellyn had said, that his computer room was deep under the Bendricks. So there I was.
But I had to get Provis first. I slid right around to the far side of the machinery and the next batch of headlights lit up a little herd of electric trikes, all plugged in and ready to go. Just like me. So in the next lull of darkness, I hopped over the railings into a saddle, hefted my pistol for comfort and belted off up the bright road behind the next lorry that came by. It was a big one, as wide as the roadway and it made good cover. I was scarcely visible hugging its tail-lights until it turned off sharply from the road and almost wiped me out of the saddle, with its swinging tailboard. No indicators indicated its change qf direction. Perhaps there was a lady goon in the driving cab.
This left me in the middle of the bright, open road, alone and exposed and heading straight for a squad of marching goons coming 'at me. I could see the red of their eyes and I thought fast.
In fact, the whole of my life passed before my drowning eyes. My first Frog aeroplane, little Deirdre, the day I broke the bank at Douglas, Isle of Man, demob-day and the chalk-striped suit they gave me, Senorita Conchita Hawkins, the day my Uncle Edward tried to teach me to swim, and the week I spent avoiding a posting by walking around Portsmouth Barracks with a piece of blank paper in my hand.
And by the time I was tearing through the goons, I actually had. a piece of paper in my hand. I found out later that it was an unpaid gas bill which had scrumpled itself up in the comer of my pocket, but just then it felt as urgent and important as the word of God. And the goons took it even more seriously. They assumed it Was the word of Llewellyn and parted like the Red Sea. So I went on waving it all the way to the Control Building.   •
I went on waving it beyond the Control Building too, for there were goon's on the front steps. I bowled past them to the end of the building, dismounted, plugged my trike into a vacant socket and walked briskly and purposefully with my piece of paper into the dark around the side. No shouts followed me. No needles thudded into the crawling muscles of my back.
Ahead was the sea, black behind the wandering beams of light which splayed out from the observation towers, and where I was walking it was too dark to see one foot in front of the other. I tripped down a step and thudded against a small back door. No light shone through the cracks so I went in fast, smashing the lock with my foot.
Inside I froze. I heard no sound and felt forward to the wall, then a door, this time unlocked. Behind it a corridor was dimly lit from around its corner and I crept along, hearing voices from above. I found that I was in a semi-basement and the voices were the voices of guards, up a short flight of.stairs, in the front hall. I saw their shapes through the ribbed glass of a door at the head of the stairs, and I crept higher to see better. As I did so, they clicked to attention.'Then they were obscured by a bigger, more familiar shape, and I heard a nastier, more familiar voice. It was Tonypandy Williams on the rampage. His words were muffled by the door but I got the drift. They had better look a bit more bloody sharpish, boyos, arid get from by here to by there on the dot, or by dew they'd be sorry. And to keep their stupid Heinie eyes skinned and their dirty Heinie lugholes open, and to shout if they needed him. He would be by there, mind you, all the time.
My two hands were itching to wrap themselves around his fat, red neck, but I backed down the stairs and poked around. Up at the end I found a lift, a stretcher-sized one from the old days when the building had been, a sanatorium. I got in and pressed the button for the first floor. Ball's office would be empty, I thought, remembering the smoking pile of minced meat back up the hill.
The lift creaked to a halt and I peered out. The corridor was empty but I heard office noises from all round. I walked up towards Ball's room. As I opened the door, a girl came into the passage from another room down at the end, carrying a pile of papers.
'Ah, there you are,' I said into the empty room. 'I was told you wanted to see me.' And I took a business-like step inside and closed the door firmly.
In for a penny, I thought, in for the jackpot. And doing something is better than doing nothing. There was a talk-box on the wall and I punched the button marked Reception. A German voice grunted back.
'Mr Williams?'I said.
The German grunted negative.
'Find him,' I said sharply. 'He is required in Dr Ball's office immediately.' And I switched off. My Welsh accent is not good but I once had a girl friend in Trihcomalee and I listened to her for hours.
I went through the french window onto the dark terrace in case Tonypandy brought company, but he came alone. He stood in the doorway of the empty room looking about him, puzzled.
'Come right in,' I said from the shadows outside, 'and close the door.' He was well trained and he did so. Then I stepped into the room and he leaped at me. He was almost as fast as Provis. I smashed him face-first into the wall and while I pressured his throat with two fingers of my left hand, I broke his right arm. Then I chopped him hard in the small of his back and, still pressuring his throat, I propped him in the corner facing me.
'It's your moment of truth, boyo,' Lsaid. 'When I ease the pressure, tell me where my friend is. No more, no less.'
I relaxed my two fingers enough to let him talk. He spat some ugly Welsh at me and tried to slash me with his left hand. His right arm was hanging helplessly down his side. I back-handed him and applied more pressure harder.
'One more chance,' I said. 'The last one ever.'
I meant it and he saw that I did. I eased the pressure again.
'Downstairs,' he gasped. 'Operating room, downstairs.'
My two fingers were still pronged into his throat. I straightened my arm sharply and he crumpled.
I should have killed him. I should have killed Breumann too.
The fat man says, of course, that we should leave the killing
to the flash harries, but he would have asked no questions. Nevertheless, I left Williams there to be shovelled up later and went through the same exercise again.
I buzzed down for the two reception guards and when they came up I clunked them hard and laid them neatly beside Williams. Then I locked the door behind me, calling a cheery farewell to them, in case the typist was still in the corridor. And I went downstairs and found the operating room at the back of the ground floor, facing the sea.
There were double swing doors to the room, and through the ribbed glass portholes was a very bright light. There was no movement but I could hear low voices. I touched the door gently but it was bolted on the inside, and I poked around for another way in. I found it down the side passage and through a wash-room. I crossed the tiles gently, pushed the door an inch and through the crack I saw the two guards who had dragged Provis away from Castell Coch, tipped back negligently against the wall on tall steel stools. One was trimming his nails with a slender, glittering scalpel, the other was toying with a thick, rubbery truncheon. One of them said something to the other, but I could not hear. The other one looked across the room and shrugged. I gently pushed the door wider so that I could follow his glance, and saw Provis.
Then, without knowing it, I was into the room and upon them. This time I did kill. I killed them both as fast and as nasty as I knew. And I went on killing them after they were dead.
167
AFTER a while my head cleared slightly and I hurried to unstrap Provis. The cords that bound him were wet with his blood. I tried not to move him as I pushed the whole dripping table out of the heat and the glare of the overhead light.
He was naked, and the whole of his huge body was black with drying blood. His face was set in a rigid mask of infinite pain and he was unconscious. I examined his body gently, almost fearing to touch him but his limbs, at least, seemed, straight and unbroken. I saw then that the blood was from a thousand careful, shallow cuts which criss-crossed his torso like the crackle on old china. Beneath the blood, his belly and the upper parts of his thighs showed great purpling weals and ridges.
There was a red fire-bucket on the floor, almost emptied. The Germans had used the water, I suppose, to bring him round whenever he passed out. I cupped my hand and dripped cool water onto his brow. He opened his eyes and started to mouth a whispered oath. Then, slowly, he recognised me.
'What took you so long?' he said almost soundlessly.
'Don't talk,' I said and went to fetch more water.When I came back he was moving his limbs, minutely and with great pain. I gently dripped more water onto him. He tried to sit up. But he fell back, opening some of the carving on his torso and starting the blood again.
He lay there breathing faintly. I didn't know what to do. He seemed to me to be very near death.
'My jacket,' he whispered.
I looked around the room and saw his clothes lying in a corner. I fetched the jacket.
'The button on the inside pocket,' he said. 'Give me.'
I tore off the button and put it in his hand. He held it for a moment, then painfully lifted his hand to his mouth. He swallowed, his eyes closed and the huge, mutilated body relaxed.
Christ, I thought, that was a death pill I gave him. But a moment later, his eyes opened again and this time they were brighter. And he spoke more firmly than before.
'That's better,' he said. 'Chuck the rest of the water over me, will you?'
I trickled the water over him and he eased himself up, wincing as he stretched the torn flesh. But the pain lines were dissolving from his face. It was like watching Jekyll and Hyde, for he seemed to be regenerating himself as I watched, out of the tortured, bloodied hulk that I had unstrapped only minutes before.
'Christ,' I said. 'I thought you were done for.* 'It's the blockbuster,' he said. 'I'll be all right for just about an hour. Don't you carry one?' 'No,' I said.
'The fat man always insisted in the old days,' he said. 'Ha must be getting soft.' He put his legs on the floor and tested his strength. Then he stood up tall and breathed deep. It was like magic.
'They're good pills,' he said. 'I fed one to a pony at St. Mellon's last year and won fifty quid. Knock you dead cold after an hour though. And then you need a very quick quack or it's curtains.'
The pain was still there, very deep in his eyes, but he was moving again like a big cat. He went to the washroom and spent a long, painful time dabbing the blood from his body.
'If I dry myself I'll start bleeding again,' he said.
'What did they do to you?' I said.
'I don't know,' he said. 'Nothing basic, I think. I kept passing out, a trick I learned in India, and they had to keep stopping to bring me round. They beat me fairly straightforwardly when they got me here first, and they've been playing with me on and off ever since. How long have I been here?'
'Twenty-four hours,' I said.
'It seems longer,' he said. 'I want to find them now. Give me your gun.'
'Look behind you,' I said. He looked at the broken bodies of his torturers. Then he looked at me.
Thank you,' he said. 'Now you tell me.'
I told him everything, compressing it so tight that it sounded surrealist, even to me.
'I know what it sounds like,' I said. 'But it's all facts. Llewellyn is addled all right, but he's in earnest and he's ready to go.'
He took it all as calmly as though I had been telling him about apicnic on the beach. Perhaps the blockbuster had side-effects.
I had been stripping the black suits from the dead goons.
'We'd better wear these,' I said. 'They'll fit at a pinch.'
Provis grunted. He looked regretfully at his strawberry-striped shirt and his vast, natty, pale-grey suiting. 'I'm very fond of that ensemble,' he said.
'Get another on expenses,' I said. . 'It'll be a big chit,' he said. T got the suit in Prague and the shirt in Milan.' But he took the bigger pair of black trousers and stepped very carefully into them.
'Now what are you going to do?' he said.
'I'm going to find this computer room and smash it up,' I Said. 'That will give me time. You need time in this business if you want help from your boss. If he's a fat man pickled in
Calvados.' I looked at Provis. He appeared to be almost as fit as when I had first seen him. But the light in his eye was getting a little too bright.
'That is,' I said, 'if you can getyourself out of here solo.'
'Well,' he said. 'The pill has given me an hour. If we can't do it in an hour we'll never do it. I'm coming with you.'
'Good,' I said. I still had my pistol, and Provis armed himself from one of the corpses. He toyed with the scalpel for a moment, then shrugged and threw it down.
'Come on,' he said, 'Let's go shooting.'
'Take it easy,' I said. 'We're walking out of here like two bloody blacksuits on an important job for Tonypandy Williams.'
'A waste of time,' he said. T want to go shooting.'
'No,' I said. His pill was working hard but he calmed himself down enough to fall into step, and we marched out through the empty front hall into the roadway. I spared a thought for the Welsh brute and the German goons sleeping upstairs in Ball's room.
*I can speak German,' I said. 'So if any Welsh brute stops us, I'll talk back in German.'
'Right,' he said. 'And if any German bastard stops us, I'll tear his bloody head off.'
'No,' I said. 'Just answer him in Welsh.'
'Right,' he said. 'Dyma newyddion a tywyddion y dydd.'
'What's that?'I said.
'This is the news and weather forecast for today.' he said. 'It's all the Welsh I know.'
'Well, make sure you don't say it to aTaffy,' I said.
'It's all any bloody Welshman knows,' he said. 'That, and the Lord's Prayer.'
'Maybe,' I said, and we walked on unmolested. A truck hooted us out of its way and a patrolling trike bowled past us' without a second look at all.
'There's no need for that ridiculous goose-step,' I said. But. the pill was working on Provis like Old Bush Mills on a fighting Mick. Before I knew it he had forked off and was turkey-strutting up the road towards the big main shed. I caught up to him, hissing.
'Where the hell are you off to?' I said.
'I'm going to bust in there and shoot the place up,' he said. 'Where did you think I was going?' 'Why?'I said.
'That's what we're here for,' he said. 'Isn't it?' 'No,' I said. 'We're here to find Llewellyn's big switch and turn it off.'
'Speak for yourself,' he said. 'I want to shoot people.' 'But not just for the fun of it,' I said. 'Follow me.' 'Aw,' he said. 'Life's not long enough.' But he followed me back up the road towards the big dome of the circuit-breaker.
Or whatever it was. Then a patrolling trike rolled alongside us and slowed down.
'Gestunkellundfarbenbeinder?' said the goon on its saddle, I think.
'Dyma newyddion Mr Williams a tywyddion y dydd,' said Provis, quick as a flash. The German grunted, grimaced and rolled off. We turned smartly into the shadow of the big steel dome and hopped the railings.
'Why here?' said Provis. I waved up into the darkness above.
'There's an awful lot of power up there,' I said, 'coming in from everywhere. It goes round and round up there and comes out here.' I pointed to the thick cables burrowing into the concrete.
'Right,' said Provis. 'Let's get down after it.'
We poked around. It was a little easier now, the traffic was not so heavy or so bright. In fact, when I came to listen, all I could hear was a growing hush over the whole place.
'All quiet on the western Welsh,' said Provis. 'What's this?'
He was fiddling with the battens on a big steel lid, the size of a sentry-box, let into the concrete plinth of the machinery. We got the door open. There was nothing inside, just bare steel walls, and Provis started out.
'Come on,' he said. 'Time is passing. I've only fifty minutes before I flake.'
But I stopped him and pulled the door shut. The box was an elevator and the closing of the door operated it. Machinery hummed and our bellies jerked. It felt fast but it was a long time before we stopped. We were down a long, long way. I poked the door cautiously open with my pistol and we stepped out into a deserted space, all rough concrete, with a big steel door at the other end. In the door was a circular Judas window, closed. I put my ear against it and heard voices, so I waved Provis flat against the wall and stood back to blow the lock with my pistol. As Provis said, time was passing. And now he could indulge himself.
But he lifted a big finger, asking me to wait. He stepped up to the closed peephole, placed his pistol steadily in its dead centre and knocked loudly on the door. When the steel circle slid open, he shot straight through the.face which appeared. I exploded the lock in the same instant and heaved the door open against the dead weight of the man behind it, a man without a head.
Provis .leaped past me, over the spouting blood into the other guard, standing in the doorway, shock still. He went down and we were into a lavishly-carpeted space heading towards a door. A red leather' door, I saw, one of. the hall-marks of Lord Llewellyn.
_ We worked well together, Provis and I. With no conscious signal between us we stopped in the same instant, Provis flattened against the wall beside the door, covering my back and leaving me free to bust in.
Then I remembered we were, wearing black suits, so instead of busting in I pushed the door gently open and took a step jnside.
'Gestunkenblintz,' I said to the white-coated computermen within.
'Just checking, isn't it?' said Provis in his Harry Secombe accent.
BUT the white-coated computermen just looked up at us as scientifically supercilious as all boffins everywhere. Then they bent back over the humming, clicking, winking boxes that filled half the room, the rows of grey steel wardrobes, the banks of knobs and coloured switches. One wall was as full of dials as Gamage's clock department.
The other half of the room was very different. The huge end wall was covered with a jumbo-sized version of Llewellyn's map of power all lit up and waiting for the big switch. Before it was another lavishly carved throne like the one in Castell Coch, and a coloured keyboard. This was where it was all going to happen.
While we watched, the computermen continued to tend their wagonloads of electronics. One of them stood right ahead of us, before the wall of dials, watching the flickering needles and making infinitely delicate adjustments to the knobs at his fingertips. Another boffin, a grey-haired man of distinction, walked over to the board.
'Not long now, sir,' said the man at the wall, without taking his eyes from the clocks. 'Everything's swinging.'-
There was a loud click somewhere and the needles jumped in unison. The clockwatcher played his knobs delicately and the needles settled down, all of them, I saw, a segment further around their dials, all towards a big red zero.
'That's C3 switching in, I shouldn't wonder,' he said.
The other man leaned over and joggled one of a bank of small switchgear. A red light winked on and off.
'Right,' he said. 'You're right.' His hand played over the whole bank -of red lights which winked on and off in rows. 'Only D5 and a few of the non-grid sources left to come in. What's D5?*
'Leeds, I think,' said the clockwatcher. 'Somewhere up north anyway.'
The man of distinction moved a step to the right and started to undo the battens on a big red lid. He paused and looked at the clockwatcher.
'You can feel it building up, eh?' he said. 'It's a bit spooky.'
The clockwatcher shrugged. 'It's a lot of power certainly, •sir,' he said.
'That's what I mean,' said the other, but the clockwatcher went on watching his clocks and caressing his knobs. He was younger than the man of distinction. I suppose older boffins are more human than younger ones.
'I think I'll have a look at the big one,' said the older man, and went on opening the red lid. I shifted a few feet in order to see what was inside. The man turned to us.
'What are you hanging about here for?' he said. 'You'd better get about your business.'
Provis touched his forelock. "'Sorry, sir,' he said. 'Very sorry, look you, to intrude. It's just that I find it all so interesting. My lad's apprenticed here in the works, see, and I like to talk to him on his own level. Going to switch everything off, then, is it?'
The computerman looked at us more closely. Then he walked over to us.
'You'd better show me your passes,' he said.
'Certainly, sir,' said Provis. He produced his pistol. So did I, and we both produced our danger faces. In thirty flat seconds we had twelve computermen lined up in the space outside. The clicking of their scientific outrage drowned the sound of their machines so I walked down the line scientifically tapping their egg-shaped nerve-ends, putting them to sleep for seventy-five minutes, give or take what you will.
Then we looked around the room with a little more leisure. At the far "end behind the rows of electronics, a thick steel duct grew out of the wall, at the roof, bringing down the cables and power from above. They crept across the wall, spewing out thick plaits of colour-coded filaments as they went, which separated and snaked off into the rows of computer units. We followed the main cables across the room to the wall of clocks where the big red lid was still half open.
I pulled it wide. Inside was a big drum, its surface graduated. Bisecting it was a hefty knife-switch, the handle towards my hand, and as I watched I heard the loud ratchety click again. The drum moved around a point, I saw, bringing the red upper segment nearer the centre.
'D5 switching in, I shouldn't wonder,' said Provis.
'You're right,' I said. 'This is it, the big switch.'
'What shall we do?' said Provis.
'I don't know,' I said. 'I don't know enough about electronics. Perhaps we'd better look around first. God knows what will happen if we pull it. And there was another door out there.'
We went out, stepping over the bodies in the hall. The other door we found, led only to another rough concrete box like the one by which we had entered. Instead of a lift, however, a black four-foot circle gaped, the mouth of a metal-lined tube curving into the darkness. A track, like a giant curtain-track set into the centre of its roof, projected out and across to anchor in the concrete opposite. And hanging from it in front of us was a gleaming four-foot metal cylinder, a section of its shell slid back to show a couple of cushioned seats in tandem.
It was another of Ball's gimmicks, I guessed. A man-sized, two-seater draper's railway. I also guessed it led to Castell
Coch. If so, I could have made it in a fraction of the time with less of the bother. Ah well, I thought, I'll know next time.
I heaved the empty car forward on its rail into the mouth of the tunnel. If anyone shot in from the dark there would be a noisy collision to warn us. Then there was another noise to warn us, the noise of approaching trouble. Down at the other end, at the elevator, goons had arrived and were piling out of the lift.
'I'll deal with them,' said Provis, and before I had time to agree he had whooped up the carpet and into them. I hefted my pistol and followed, but he needed no help. That pill was pure unadulterated fizz. He was fighting drunk, now that there was a little action, and laughing like a maniac.
There were a lot of goons to cope with but he had thrown away his pistol. Three of them were already piled up neatly in the open doorway and by the time I had got across the carpet he had a fourth by the feet and was using him to flail the rest of them. Provis was a size bigger than Samson and the man in his hands was bigger than the jawbone of an ass. But softer too. He squelched.
While the big man was having his fun, I piled the sleeping goons neatly out of the way and dragged the faceless horror from the threshold. His blood had stopped gushing. I jammed the elevator door open with an unconscious goon so that we would not be disturbed again and went to have another look at the electronics. Then Provis calmed down and joined me, breathing heavily.
'Sorry about that,' he said. 'I was carried away. I have to make use of my hour or it won't be worth while.'
'Understandable,' I said. 'Let's get on with it.'
'I'll have a go,' said Provis, and strode across the room as though he knew what he was about. He opened one of the computer cabinets. Inside, it was a delicate chaos of printed circuits and slender, coloured filaments, all apples, no doubt, to the scientific eye, but utter gibberish to the rest of us. Provis started to tear wires out by the handful, filling the room with showers of tiny sparks. Then he went through a random selection of boxes.
Others contained a great spools of memory, revolving slowly, ready to pulse out a million instructions a second. Provis snapped the tapes and the spools went on turning, churning all their knowledge into a tangle of shiny brown spaghetti on the rubber floor. Another box was a programming box, all plugs and holes like a telephone exchange, the part which tells the great clicking morons what to do. He unplugged the lot and the tiny lights winked everywhere in confusion. Or anger.
This, I suppose, is the one hope for the human race. Computers are not electronic brains. They are electronic imbeciles. They have memories of a herd of wild elephants and all the
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energy in the world, but they cannot do anything about anything until we tell them how, what and when. We hope.
But wires can be resoldered, I thought. Tapes can be rewound and programmes replugged. There had to be something else to do. And as I was wondering what it was, we heard another painful, ratchety click. The wall of dials flickered nervously again and all the needles settled a point up the scale towards the red zeros. I looked at the big drum which was clicking up the grand, ominous total. The red action segment was another degree nearer the centre line and the big handle of the knife switch seemed to quiver for Llewellyn's hand to pull it and switch, I supposed, all the electricity in the land into his twinkling great map for action.
I looked at the mess of electronics piled up on the floor and sighed. Then the big switch clicked up another painful notch. The whole operation, was going on regardless. Perhaps it was all inevitable now, like all the other scientific marvels of our time, frozen goods, the pill, speak-your-weight machines, multistorey car parks, the bomb, the new wide screen with the new loud sound and Caravelles.
A tin-can clang jerked me out of my philosophical gloom. Someone had arrived by tube and Provis was already flattened against the wall beside the far door. I took up my position on the opposite side of the door and we waited. We heard a few more clangs, then a couple of muffled oaths. Then the door burst angrily open.
It was Llewellyn. Provis froze him with his pistol and I waited a moment, but he was alone so I pressed my pistol into his other groin.
'This way, Sir,' I said. 'Glad you could make it.'
We took him carefully into the big room and sat him on his throne. Despite our pistols upon him, he settled down into it like an old foot into a well-worn boot, onejeg stuck out like a reclining oak tree. He looked through his laser-beam eyes, first at one pistol then at the other. He looked back to me.
'You are too late, Brock,' he said. 'Like all the bastard sons of Hengest, you must finally fail.'
T can't believe you're right,' I said. 'You know that your boy Ball is dead, of course?'
'I'm right, Brock,' he said. 'After my council today, I gave my instructions.' His eyes swept over the wall of dials, ending on the big switch. 'Power is building up now. When those needles hit zero, every kilowatt of power in the country will be coming through this board. That drum will click to full power and it will all be here at my thumb.'
He must have twirled one of the carved knobs on his throne, for the console keyboard grew high out of the carpet before him like a baby Wnrlitzer. He looked at the watch on his jumbo-sized wrist and glanced back at the dials.
'Another eight minutes, Mr Brock,' he said. 'You are too late.'
'For Christ's sake,' said Provis. 'Let's shoot him now. He's got eight minutes, and I've only got about thirty. I have to shoot somebody, don't I?'
Llewellyn's hand moved over the keyboard before him, depressing every button on it. He heaved a huge breath and looked at me.
'Now you can shoot me, Brock,' he said. 'And to hell with you.'
Jesus, I thought, he sounds as though he's right. And if he is, I thought, I've cocked it all up. And if I've cocked it all up, I thought, the fat man will be cross. And if he gets cross, I thought my life will not be worth living. So, I thought, Llewellyn just has to be wrong.
'You just have to be wrong,' I said.
'See for yourself,' said Llewellyn, sitting-back in his throne. 'Look at the meters. Two more sources to phase themselves in. Then that drum clicks to dead centre.' He waved at his keyboard. 'All the contacts are made. You are too late.'
I walked over to the big drum-switch on the wall. Provis kept his pistol steady on Llewellyn.
'I'll just switch it off,' I said. "That's what I'll do.'
'How?' said Llewellyn.
I didn't know, of course. If I touched the handle of the
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thing I might be blowing up Wales. Well, I thought, who cares about Wales? Something has to give.
I grasped the handle and tried to push it down, away from the ominous red patch. I suppose I had some vague idea of stemming the tide, Canute-wise. But the cakes were already burning. The little princes were already deep in their barrel of rich ruby, the arrow was winging down towards Harold's beady eye. Hardy was kissing Horatio on the burning deck and the gallant six hundred were almost into the jaws of death. Nothing happened at all. Llewellyn yelped out loud but nothing happened at all. I tried harder to move the handle but it resisted. And then Llewellyn was upon me, too fast even for the hopped-up reflexes of Provis.
'Don't,' he roared. 'Don't touch that lever.'
A big arm, as of God, brushed me aside as he leaped towards the big switch. I thumped against the opposite wall and lay there fuzzy. The weight of Llewellyn's rush carried him on into the box as his big hand, stretched before him, hit the lever with all the force of his eighteen stones. He screamed and the room went mad.
The needles on the wall flickered like maniacs and we heard a great crescendo whine that started low and disappeared right off the top of the scale. Flames spattered in all the grey boxes of the computer. The million lights of the wall map twinkled and flared and died. The lamps went out, of course, but for long seconds afterwards the room was brighter than lamps could have lit it. The computer cabinets, the thick armoured cables, the dials and even Llewellyn's throne, everything was outlined in an eerie bright blue fuzz. And so, horribly, was the massive shape of Llewellyn, still gripping the lever and sagging now, like a great side of putrescent, luminous meat.
Then tiny tongues of lightning began to arc between the ■cables. Melting metal dripped from their sheaths as they fused into a mess of smoking knitting. Little gobbets of flame spat from the rows of big grey boxes and the clicking of the moron stopped forever. The choking black smoke of burning rubber filled the room and at last everything was dark.
'Christ,' said Provis, somewhere in the darkness. 'Is that enough, do you think?'
'I think so,' I said. 'Let's get out of here.'
'Which way?' said Provis.
'Follow me,' I said. He hung on to my shoulder and we fumbled our way out into the passage over the sleeping boffins to the lift. I manhandled away the goon who was propping the door open and we got in and closed it. Nothing happened. The power was off.
'Well, that figures, I suppose,' I said and we fumbled back into the smoke and out at the other end of the bunker to the tube which had brought Llewellyn. It was clearer there and I flicked my lighter. Provis dragged the two crashed railcars out of the hole, we folded ourselves into four-foot lengths and set off along the black slippery tube. Not, I hoped, all the way to Castell Coch, or wherever else the tunnel led. All I wanted to do was to get out and away. There was Provis to think of. His time was getting short and he was too heavy to hump to Cardiff on my back. And Angie, of course. With any luck, she was washed, brushed and sitting up in bed waiting for me with a hot cup of Horlicks.
'Get a bloody move on,' I said to Provis. He was humping painfully along, doubled up like Groucho and grunting like Donald Duck.
Then we felt the soft brush of cool air. I flicked my lighter again and saw a ventilator shaft. We poked around it and found a pattern of footholes and soon we were up in the open air, still, I was glad to see, in the dark. All the blazing factory lights were out. But there was a lot of activity again. Torches were flashing and orders were shouting. We had probably screwed up the main power supply for the whole plant.
Then the whole place lit up with a bang that hurt my eardrums,-and when I had undazzled my eyes I saw that thereof of the big main building had lifted off like a flying saucer to let out a sheet of flame as big as a cloud. Huge sudden thunder-ings continued to deafen us, each with its own rising blast of fire.
'God Almighty,' said Provis. 'Did we mean to do that?' 'Not necessarily,' I said. 'But it's just as well, I suppose.' 'I'm impressed,' he said. 'You said you knew nothing about electronics.' 'Well,'I said. 'Not much.' 'Right,' said Provis. 'Let's get to the car.' 'What car?'I said. 'Yours,' he said. 'Over there.'
He pointed over my shoulder. I looked around and saw the car park behind me. My old Volvo was gleaming in the firelight where I had parked it the day before, I looked at Provis. The shadows of pain were returning fast to his face.
'Come on, then,' I said. 'Time is passing. You'll have to get a doctor soon.' We walked towards the car unmolested. There was activity all around us, mainly breakdown vans with flashing lights, but it was all passing us by.
'No particular hurry,' he said. 'We have a good twenty minutes yet. But I would like to drop in and get some decent clothes on. Instead of this bloody black suit. I always feel silly in dull clothes. I once went to a party dressed as a chicken.'
'Oh,' I said. He was still light-headed, I suppose, from the pill.
'Yes,' he said. 'This rich girl asked me to a party. I said, what do I wear and she said fancy dress, just come in fancy dress, darling. So I designed this chicken. With a beak that actually worked.' 'Sounds great,' I said.
'Yes,' he said. 'But when I got there, all the other men were wearing white ties and tails.'
'What did you do?' I said.
T took off my beak,' he said, 'and mingled.'
The car was unlocked and we slid into the front seat. I fumbled for the spare key, taped under the dashboard where no thief would deign to look.
Then there was a movement in the back of the car. Provis was around in a flash, hands clawed eagerly for whatever throat they would find. They found one. Then he relaxed a little and grunted approvingly.
'A bird,'he said.
'I thought you'd never come,' said Angie.
'What the hell are you doing here?' I said. 'Who is it?' said Provis.
'I hoped it was your car,' said Angie. 'There was a tin of KattyKan on the seat.' 'It's my girl,' I said. 'I hoped you'd say that,' said Angie. 'What the hell is she doing here?' said Provis. 'What the hell are you doing here?' I said. 'How do you like it?' said Angie. 'What?' I said.
'The bonfire,' she said. 'Did I make a good job of it?' 'You didn't do it,'I said. 'We did it,' said Provis.
'I did it,' said Angie. T thought you'd be pleased.'
'Well, I'm not,' I said.' 'You're supposed to be in Cardiff.'
'You put me on the wrong bus,' she said. 'It was coming back from Cardiff, not going there. And it was the last one. Where I got off, I met a nice young man called Twynham who comes to Allelec House every now and then. I told him I was to meet Schneider down here and so he brought me in his car. Did you have any trouble getting in?'
'Oh, no,' I said. 'Not really.'
'Twynham took me to his office and gave me a glass-of sherry,' she said.
'Little swine,' I said.
'Not at all,' she said. 'Then he was called away and I remembered what you told me about the middle of the big shed. I thought that was where you'd be so I gathered up a few files from his desk and chatted myself in there.'
'Christ,' I said. 'Easy, wasn't it?'
'Well,' she said. 'I know a lot of names and Allelec jargon, don't forget.'
'And you say it was you who blew the place up?' said Provis.
'Yes,' she said. 'I found a store-room crammed with bangers, the old Parnelle-type hundred-pounders. And some hydro-cee delay fuses. So there you are.'
'How the hell do you know about bombs and fuses?' I said.
'Don't growl,' she said. 'I was in B.D. for a year.'
'What's B.D.?' I said.
'Bomb Disposal, of course,' she said.
'You couldn't have been,' I said. 'You're too young.'
*I know,' she said. 'Did I do right?'
'You could have blown us up,' I said.
'I was sure I wouldn't,' she said. 'Introduce me to your friend.*
I switched on the ignition and skidded out of the car park, frustrated right down to my bootlaces. I might as well have stayed in the garden of delights. I could have been down to dok el arz at least by now. The bloody girl could have done it *all on her own. But she loves me, I thought.
'What a gorgeous girl,' said Provis.
'Until we're out of here,' she said, 'You'd better regard me as a very sexy man.'
But there was no trouble. Everyone was trying to put the fire out. I put my foot down on the way to the main gate. It was wide open letting the fire-engines through. A very big night for Rhys and Ianto. The mortuary too, no doubt.
'Inside that big shed,' I said, 'were there a lot of goons?'
'Thousands,' said Angie. She shivered. 'I hope they got out. I pressed the red button on the way.'
T suppose,' I said.
The road was dark and winding and after all the action I was almost too tired to drive. But we were right into Cardiff before I realised. The streetlamps were black and in no window was there a light. It wasn't that late, I thought. Then I shrugged. Who knows, with Taffies?
We rolled up to the police station. We were still in unrelieved dark. Even the blue light was black and inside, the duty constable was painfully carving a report into his ledger by the light of a flickering candle.
'What's up,' I said. 'Power cut?'
'Looks like it, don't it?' he'said, putting down his pen and blotting the ink from his fingers. 'What seems to be the trouble, sir? Ah, you're the one who came to see the Inspector the other night?' He smiled.
'That's right,' I said. 'I'd like to see him again. And his boss, if he's in.'
The constable chortled. 'Give us all hell, he did, sir, after you went,' he said. 'Hang on a tick and I'll say you're here. Got the name, I have. The Inspector mentioned it once or twice.' He chortled again. T could get you and your friends a cup of cold cocoa, if you like?'
'Thank you, no,' I said, 'just the Inspector.' The constable took a quick eyeful of Provis and a slower one of Angie. She was looking as chic and juicy as when she started and little, I thought, did he know. But Provis was beginning to crumble. Then the constable came back with Inspector Reece buzzing along behind.
'What is it now?' said Reece. 'Reasonable co-operation, you will remember. Reasonable only, is the co-operation you are directed to require of me, if you please. You know there is a power cut in progress, I hope?' He was buzzing like a dyspeptic horsefly and settling down, I saw, to a bitter Welsh wrangle. I had one eye on Provis. The pain was coming back faster into his face now and he was slumping lower on the wooden bench. I had to get very tough with the silly little copper, and very sincere too. He finally blew right up and fizzed off to fetch his boss.
'Can I do something, sir?' said the constable when he had gone. I had a friend for life there, so I got him to rush Provis back to Hirwain Street with the police doctor. I hoped Steve had made it back from Castell Coch.
Then Reece came back with a Chief Superintendent in a dinner jacket. His name was Hopkyn Hopkin, but he was new from Birmingham and not so bloody Welsh as he sounded. When he learned that Reece had already checked my credentials he listened to me. He looked a bit slant-eyed at my story, of course, but I got a little way through to him and he sent Reece off in a fleet of black vans up to Castell Coch with orders to bring everyone he could find back to the station for questioning. But politely. Then I asked for the SX line and Reece gave a last departing buzz at the door.
*A power cut there is,' he said. 'And that means no electricity there is, for the secret telephone line and hide and seek like that, isn't it? Have to wait, you will.' He sneered. Or hiccupped.
'Nonsense,' I said. 'The SX system is foolproof. And it's powered from London, anyway.'
Up in the-SX room I kissed Angie by candlelight, punched the scrambler and dialled Addison Road. Then I gathered Angie onto my knee and sat back to relish the pleasure of my report. Since I had left Addison Road and snooped off down the A40, I had uncovered a plot to switch off England and give it back to the Taffies, I had fallen in love and consummated the union. I had copped twelve of the best, I had been to a party and goosed a mad, electronic Alsatian. I had shot goons and been shot at at almost every step I took. I had saved my girl from a fate worse than death, I had watched Britain's premier tycoon fry himself, and I had minced up his chief boffin.
In fact, I thought, I had made the world safe for the fat man to drink his Calvados in and I was looking forward to telling him so. But the telephone was dead. I jiggled the bar. Nothing happened.
The line is dead,' I said.
'You should have listened to that sweet little policeman,' said Angie. 'Grah.Tsaid.
I blundered through the blacked-out building to the communications room. The coppers were sitting around their dead transmitters with their feet up, drinking cold tea and playing nine-card brag. They had no suggestions, until one of them remembered an old hand-generated set they used for instruction. He got it from the bottom of the cupboard and checked it, spattering candle-grease all over, and said he thought it would possibly be in working order. He sounded none too sure. I asked him if he would set it at 333.33, the Addison Road continuous-watch frequency. He said he thought the signal might possibly reach London if the Appleton Layer was lying low that night. I think he was talking rubbish.
But I humped the set back upstairs all the same and set it up.. I chucked the aerial out of the window into a tree and got Angie winding the handle. Then I looked for the microphone.
'You won't find a microphone,' said Angie. 'That's a buzzer. You know, for Morse Code.'
'For God's sake,' I said. 'All the Morse I know is SOS and Beethoven's Fifth.'
T can send,' she said. T learned it in the Wolf Cubs.'
'You're a girl,' I said.
'I know,' she said. 'But I look ghastly in brown.'
So I gave her my call-sign and started churning the handle. She buzzed away until the dozy bastards answered. Then I gave her the fat man's imperative and we waited for a long time-until his personal call-sign came back.
'He's probably playing scrabble,' I said.
'Good game,' said Angie. 'Get me a pencil and some paper.'
I blundered back downstairs and got some. Then she buzzed them to start.
'Stop it,' she said, T.haveto concentrate.'
The little machine buzzed like High Noon and she printed letters slowly while I churned the handle.
report briefley, she wrote, channel busy.
'Why?' I said, and she buzzed an interrogatory. national power failure, she wrote. She looked at me* 'Christ,' I said. 'i wonder.' 'It looks like it,' she said.
•No,1 I said. 'We couldn't have. Say this. llewellyn operation wreck uk power supply discovered and frustrated.
She buzzed for what seemed like hours. Then she Waited and listened to a very short, very curt little buzz.
'They're asking how,' she said.
'central allelec power control smashed beyond repair,' i said proudly. 'Buzz him that.'
She bent her pretty head over the key and I kissed the nape of her neck as I turned the handle. Then the thing chattered back. She took her pencil and wrote as it buzzed. She handed me the paper.
bloody fool, it said.
It went on chattering. Angie listened and buzzed the off-sign.
'You can stop turning the handle now,' she said. 'They said to wait here until they come.' 'Not bloody likely,' I said.
I sat there for a moment, toying with Angie and wondering what to do. He would probably send Greene and Muir down to take me back to Addison Road. On the other hand, he might come down to Cardiff himself. It was time to go.
'It's time to go,' I said.
'I'm hungry,' said. Angie.
The canteen was as switched off as the rest of the country but the duty sergeant found a sort of cold collation. I took it down to Reece's office and a couple of candles and a typewriter, and while we tried to chew cold Welsh griskin I tried to dictate a full report for the fat man.
'Your boss doesn't have to know about that,' said Angie, rattling a row of X's over a lyrical bit. 'He works for the Government not the Olympia Press.'
T want everyone to know,' I said.
'You're kinky,' she said.
When we had finished I went through the report with Chief Superintendent Hopkyn Hopkin and by the time he had read it right through he was wondering if he had made the right decision. But then Reece came back with the bunch he had rounded up from Castell Coch and the women had a lot to say. Certainly enough to convince the Chief Superintendent that I was not making the whole thing up.
I looked eagerly among the crowd for Breumann, but I had strapped him too tightly, apparently, and he had been dropped off with a few others at the hospital. Fluck was there..He had gone' right over the top and was goose-stepping around his cell with his arm stuck in the air, barking orders to the shadows. I saw Growland offering his autograph through the bars to a sergeant, and Sullivan, threatening the whole police, force with twelve of the best and a thousand lines each. Schneider was huddled against a damp, dark wall shaking like a baby shrew. I went up to the bars.
'High, Schneider,' I said. 'Great party, huh?'
But he didn't even see me. He just went on shaking. So I went back upstairs, leaving the whole sorry lot to cry in the dark and wait for the morning. There was enough down there to occupy Greene and Muir for a week. Which reminded me.
T may not be here when they arrive,' I said to the Chief Superintendent. 'Just give them my report and tell them I'll be in touch.'
By then, the duty-constable had coaxed some bottles of stout from the canteen and we had a drink all round. Reece even tried to apologise and buzzed on about his responsibilities.
But I grabbed Angie and shook the whole boiling of them out of our hair.
We drove to Hirwain Street and found Provis drugged to the eyebrows and just about conscious in front of the fire. Steve had made it all right back from Castell Coch and was fussing over him radiantly in a short fluffy white robe. She was carrying a tiny paraffin lamp with roses around the bowl and she looked like Florence Nightingale in green, green pastures.
The police doctor was still there, clucking disapprovingly and giving strict instructions. But he said that Provis would make it so long as he was nursed very carefully for a week or so. He looked sourly at Steve, at the carelessly tied robe and the perfect golden breasts and the long golden legs.
'The man needs no excitement, you understand,' he said. 'His resistance will be very low for some time.'
Steve nodded earnestly, then bent over the big man to straighten his cushions. The perfect golden breasts brushed his face.
'For God's sake,' said the doctor. 'You'll kill him, woman.'
Provis looked over her shoulder. He was too weak, perhaps, to bat an eyelid.
I took Angie back to the Angel. After all, it had only been one night on the tiles and they still had my room. Luckily, though, they had no room for Angie and the night-porter turned a blind eye. There was no hot water so we huddled together under the shower for warmth, then fell into bed. She curled up small in my arms and said to wait for the morning so I closed my eyes. Just before I went to sleep I heard a great noise. I opened one eye and saw red and green lights winking down past my window onto the football ground opposite. Bloody helicopters, I thought, and passed out.
I woke to a loud banging on the door, and calling voices.
'Brock,' they were saying. 'Brock are you in there? He wants you at once. Open the door, Brock. We know you are there.'
I slid further down between the sheets and clutched Angie tighter. My frightened hands awoke her and she kissed me.
'Aren't you tired?' she murmured.
'No,' I whispered. 'It's not that. It's them. Keep your voice down, for God's sake.'
'There, there, ducky,' she said. She thought it was a nightmare and her firm hands did delicate, soothing things. Then the banging started again.
'See?' I said.. 'It's Greene and Muir. Don't make a sound Perhaps they'll go away.'
But they went on calling. They had a torch, too, and its light showed beneath the door. Angie got out of bed.
'No,' I said. 'Please don't let them in. They might have that fat bastard with them. Please don't.'
'Shhh,' she said and blundered around in the dark. Then she opened the door and the torchlight lit her up. She had wrapped a tiny towel around her and she spoke in tones of outraged modesty,
'How dare you?' she said. 'Please go away, at once. I don't even know you.'
I heard Greene clear his throat. I think I heard Muir drool, the randy little swine.
'I beg your pardon, miss, ma'am, miss, er, well,' said Greene. 'We are looking for a Mr Brock.'
'My name is Thomas,' said Angie. 'Miss Thomas. And I am not sure what you are suggesting. Go away.'
'We must find Mr Brock, Miss Thomas,' said Greene. 'His uncle in London needs him urgently. A matter of life or death.'
Ha, I thought, the fat man is still in Addison Road. I breathed easier.
T don't know what you are talking about,' Angie was saying. 'Go away at once. I am a personal friend, I'll have you know, of Chief Superintendent Hopkin.'
'Hopkyn Hopkin?' said Greene. 'We've just left him.'
'That's what I said,' said Angie. 'Chief Superintendent Hopkyn Hopkin Hopkin.' She stamped her foot and the towel slipped. Gallantly, Greene switched off his torch.
'What d'you do that for?' said Muir as Angie slammed the door. They mumbled for a while, then finally stumped off down the corridor. Angie felt her way back across the carpet.
'Where are you?' she said. I crawled out from under the bed and slid beside her.
'Put me to sleep,' she said. 'I'm all worked up.'
In the morning, Angie went down and brought back a skulking sunshine breakfast, all the cold kitchen could offer. The flakes were soggy, the milk was stale and there was only Coca Cola to drink. She also brought back the news. Loudspeaker vans had been doing the town since dawn, telling it to go about its business as normally as possible for the next three or four days until power was restored through the country.
The lucky few, those with high-speed gas or Aga-heat were being asked to be good neighbours. Drivers were asked to walk, and save their petrol for the doctors, until the petrol started pumping again. And so on and on and on.
'God,' I said. 'He's going to blame it all on me.*
'Don't worry,' said Angie. 'It'll all blow over. And, anyway, what else could you have done?'
'Stayed in the office and got on with my job,' I said ..'That's what I could have done.'
'Well,' said Angie. 'There won't be any advertising for the next few days anyway.'
'That's what's worrying me,' I said. 'Can you imagine what's going to happen? They'll all forget.'
'Good,' said Angie.
'No,' I said. 'They'll forget which petrol goes well and which is the real cigarette. They'll forget what's good for them and what to drink a pint Of. They'll forget what to eat between meals.'
Jesus, I thought, the whole world is coming to a standstill. They'll even forget what washes whitest. I started to feel hysterical. Then I remembered the posters. The posters were still up there shouting. So that was all right. I was still frightened of the fat man, though, so I wrote a note to the desk asking them to send my bill to Inspector Reece and we sneaked down the back stairs. The car was where I had left it. I checked the petrol and found a hundred miles-left, thanks to the extra tank Bill had. fitted. We drove around to Provis, borrowed some money and belted out of Cardiff towards Newport.
'Where are we going?' said Angie.
'Into hiding,' I said.
On the way we passed fleet after fleet of big green lorries filled with breakdown gangs and half the pylons we passed were swarming with spidermen. Once we passed a National Grid sub-station, now just a half-acre of black, twisted metal, still smoking. And outside Chepstow we saw one of the Allelec armoured cars on its back in a ditch with two police cars on top of it.
There was nothing suspicious in my mirror and after Chepstow I began to feel easier. By the time we reached Lydney I was easy enough to take my foot off the floor and stop at the Feathers for a drink. But I was also keeping an eye ahead for the fat man's Pontiac, coming down from London. You never know. I didn't relax completely until we had peeled off the London Road at Gloucester to climb up to Cranham. I intended to lose us for a few days in the deep crinkles of the Cotswolds around Stroud. We whistled through Cranham and passed a little pub called the Adam and Eve.
'This is Paradise,' I said.
Angie murmured something and took her hand off my knee. Which was not what I meant at all. I was making a simple topographical reference. So I turned down in Painswick, past the churchyard with the ninety-nine yews, of which no one has ever been able to count more than seventy-five, steep down Pinmill Lane and up again to the high ridge of the Slad Valley.
'I used to walk up here,' I said. 'AH rosy with cider.'
'What for?'she said.
'To see the witch,' I said. 'And pick the snowdrops.'
We rolled quietly up and down the steep, green tunnels until I was almost lost myself. But we got there. A little clutch of stone houses on the side of the greenest Valley in the world.
I ran the car into the cow-parsley and went to get my key from Mrs Twissle, who screamed an eldritch welcome which switched off like the lights when she saw Angie. But after giving her the full Gloucestershire eye she offered her the full Gloucestershire blessirig and threw in a basket of warm eggs, cold ham, frothing milk and butter more yellow than buttercups. She started to throw in all the Gloucestershire news, too, but that could wait.
I took Angie by the hand and led her down the lane, over the wall, through the wood and up the garden to my cottage. No electricity, no telephone, no name, no address. No television, no wireless, no newspapers, no neighbours. No hawkers, no visitors, no Mr Whippies, no Fairy Snowmen, and positively no Nescafe Caballeros. It is a very little cottage, but is mine. I bought it for a song and I am still singing. And while Angie. boiled the eggs, I sliced the ham. Then we sat in the window and brunched.
A fox crossed thegrassandacrossthevalIey,sunshineglittered on a window. From my cottage there are only three houses in the world and all of them across the valley almost beyond reach. In one, the big one, Guy Fawkes hatched his plot. In another lives Dorcas and her donkey. And the third is haunted. Angie wanted to see the ghost but I took her to see Dorcas instead, right down to the dark rustling floor of the valley and up through the trees and the cows back into the golden sunshine.
Dorcas liked her. They went into the bedroom and Angie fed the donkey, then we came back the long way, around the ridge and past Clutterbuck's lonely cottage. The shadows were long when we got back. The pub was open and the landlord greeted me as though I had never been away. We sat in the corner and drank quietly as the sun silhouetted the trees on the ridge. The pub filled up with quiet men drinking quiet pints in the soft buzz of the paraffin lamplight. The darts began to thud.
Then the peace was shattered. A bloody pubcrawling Welshman came bursting through the door, telling a bloody pub-crawling Welsh story to his bloody pubcrawling mate. The quiet drinkers sighed. Welshmen have not been welcome in Glou-. cestershire since a coachload of drunken Taffies painted the Crusader's Tomb bottle-green.
'For a bit of peace and quiet, see?' the Welshman was saying loudly. 'So he went down to this village in the middle of Wales to get away from it all, like, see? But when he got there, look, nobody would bloody talk to him. And not only that, man, but when he would go into a pub or a shop, they would even stop talking among themselves. And after a bit of this he felt like a bloody leper and he thought, some bloody holiday, he thought, see?
'So he went to the village reverend and told him all about it, see? "Look," he said, "they told me you was all friendly down in Wales. And now I come here none of you, not one of you will even pass the time of day. What's the matter with me," he says.
'"Well," says the reverend. "Well, boyo, you tell me this. Tell me have you bothered to learn a few words', even just a few words of their language to show them, like, that you mean well?" And the chap, of course, he has not. He never thought of it, see? So he asks the reverend and says, "Look, will you teach me?"
'And the reverend taught the chap, see? He taught him to say.'Techydda.'"
The Welshman looked around the bar, hoping that we were all listening to him. 'That's pronounced yakee-da,' he said to the bowed heads we presented him. 'It means, like, Wotcher cockj' and he turned back to his mate and continued.
'So this chap practised a bit and the reverend said, "There you are, boyo, you just say that to them and they will all see that you mean to be friendly."
'So the chap goes out hopefully, like, and into the street, see? And down the street was coming this man on this bike. Ah, thought the chap, here's my chance. I'll be able to say yakee-da to him and he'll know I want to be friendly, see? So he runs out into the road, waving his arms and shouting yakee-da, yakee-da. And do you know what the man on the bike says?'
I drained my mug and stood up.
'Get out of the road, you Welsh bastard,' I said. And I took my girl by the hand and led her through the dark village to bed.