heading with that foursome. Get there fast. This surveillance has top priority. I want to know all there is to know about this Immelmann guy.’
Chapter 7
Wilt’s day had begun badly and got steadily worse. All his hopes and expectations of the previous evening had proved terribly wrong. Instead of the homely pub with a log fire, and a good meal and several pints of beer or better still real ale inside him, and a warm bed waiting for him, he found himself trudging along a country lane with dark clouds closing in from the West. In many respects it had been a disastrous day. He had walked the mile and a half to the station with his knapsack on his back only to find that there were no trains to Birmingham because of work on the line. Wilt had had to take a bus. It was a comfortable enough bus–or would have been if it hadn’t been half filled with hyperactive schoolchildren under the charge of a teacher who did his level best to ignore them. The rest of the passengers were Senior, and in Wilt’s opinion Senile, Citizens, out on a day-trip to enjoy themselves, a process that seemed to consist of complaining loudly about the behaviour of the hyperactive kids and insisting on stopping at every service station on the motorway to relieve themselves. In between service stations they sang songs Wilt had seldom heard before and never wanted to hear again. And when finally they reached Birmingham and he bought a ticket for Hereford he had difficulty finding the bus. In the end he did. It was a very old double-decker bus with a faded ‘Hereford’ sign on the front. Wilt thanked God there were no other passengers in it. He’d had enough of small boys with sticky fingers climbing across his lap to look out the window and of old age pensioners singing, or at any rate caterwauling, ‘Ganging along the Scotswood Road to see the Blaydon Races’ and ‘We’re going to hang out the washing on the Siegfried Line’. Wilt climbed wearily into the back and lay down across the seat and fell asleep. When the bus left he woke up and was surprised to find he was still the only passenger. He went back to sleep again. He had only had two sandwiches and a bottle of beer all day and he was hungry. Still, when the bus got to Hereford he’d find a cafe and have a good meal and look for a bed and breakfast and in the morning set out on his walking tour. The bus didn’t get to Hereford. Instead it stopped outside a shabby bungalow on what was clearly a distinctly B road and the driver got out. Wilt waited ten minutes for him to return and then got out himself and was about to knock on the door when it opened and a large angry man looked out.
‘What do you want?’ he demanded. In the bungalow a Staffordshire bull terrier growled menacingly.
‘Well, as a matter of fact I want to go to Hereford,’ said Wilt, keeping a wary eye on the dog.
‘So what are you doing here? This isn’t bloody Hereford.’
Wilt produced his ticket.
‘I paid my fare for Hereford in Birmingham and that bus’
‘Isn’t going nowhere near Hereford. It’s going to the fucking knacker’s yard if I can’t flog the fucker first.’
‘But it says ‘Hereford’ on the front.’
‘My, oh, my,’ said the man sarcastically. ‘You could have fooled me. You sure it don’t say ‘New York’? Go and take a dekko and don’t come back and tell me. Just bugger off. You come back and I’ll set the dog on you.’
He went back into the bungalow and slammed the door. Wilt retreated and looked at the sign on the bus. It was blank. Wilt stared up and down the road and decided to go to the
