“Watch for the lights.”
“Will they come? Only, Mr. Tinker doesn’t seem very reliable.”
I wiped the windscreen. Not a light out there. Nothing moved. “He’s the best barker in the business. Anyway, Antioch’s running it.”
“Tell me about Antioch.”
“Eh?” I said suspiciously, but she was only trying to make up. “Antioch and me’s old mates. He was a Ghurka officer.”
“You know so many different sorts of people.”
“Everybody’s into antiques, love.”
“Can’t be.” She was smiling in the darkness. “I’m not, for instance.”
“Aren’t you?” I said evenly, which shut her up.
There came first a faint row of dot lights. Ten minutes later the convoy approached, a slow switching queue of lorries revving on the incline, the ground shaking as they came. Even in the night it was impressive. I heard Michelle gasp. I stood out, collar up against the drizzle, and held up the krypton lamp. Characteristically, the lead wagon merely flashed, slowed to a crawl. I smiled, recognizing Antioch’s trademark. The double blink went down the whole convoy. The last lorry pulled out, overtook at a roar into the lay-by.
“There are so many!” Michelle was beside me, shoulder up to ward weather away.
“Love, if I could have done it by correspondence,” I said, going forward to greet Antioch in the din of the passing lorries. He saw me, waved at the column. It churned on past.
“Lovejoy.” We both had our backs against the roar.
“Wotcher, Antioch. Any trouble?”
He grinned. He enjoys all this, driving about in all weathers. He loves nothing better than a catastrophe, a breakdown, a flash flood washing a road bridge. You feel you want to arrange an avalanche for the frigging lunatic.
“Police query near Carlisle, but I’d the consignment notes. A caff dust-up with some yobbos. Peaceful.”
“Antioch. About your drivers.”
“We’ll unload, then can you feed them? I’ve compo rations, but they’ll need more before daylight.”
“Yes.” I’d already warned Mrs. Buchan, who’d been delighted at my threat of dozens of voracious appetites. “Then?”
“We’ll run to Aberdeen, the oil terminals.”
“Your destination’s a place called Tachnadray.” He likes directions military style, eastings and westings and that. I’d forgotten how, so I chucked in my own map with Tachnadray ringed. He shone his light, grinned and shook his head. His lorry’s cabin door was open. Michelle was looking in.
“There’s a tramp inside,” she said reprovingly to Antioch.
The ragged figure coughed, a long gravelly howl that silenced the roars of the last lorries passing us. Michelle clutched my arm. Recognition had struck.
It opened one bleary eye. “Gawd, Lovejoy. Where the bleedin’ ’ell?”
“Hiyer, Tinker. Go back to sleep. We’re nearly there.”
Antioch climbed into the cabin, revved and joined the convoy’s tail. I stood, smiling, watching the red lights wind into the fog.
Michelle got her voice back. “He’s… he’s horrible!”
“Please don’t criticize Tinker.” We made for the Mawdslay. “He’s the only bloke who trusts me. A lot depends on him. Me. Tachnadray. Joseph. And,” I added, “maybe you.”
Ten o’clock on a cold wet morning. At eight we’d waved off the empty convoy, and I was just back from depositing a mixed bag of checks, money orders, and notes into the Caithness National. Me and Trembler had drawn Antioch’s draft. He’d set off following the convoy. There’d been enough to give Antioch’s drivers a bonus. Michelle had opposed this, exclaiming that it left hardly any. I didn’t listen. You have to pay cash on the nail sometimes, and this was one of them. She was still at it when we found Tinker happily trying out Mrs. Buchan’s home brewed hooch in the long kitchen.
“Giving away all that money!” Michelle was grumbling.
“Listen, love,” I said. Trembler strode past, discarding his gloves, ready for his third breakfast. “How many men would you say Antioch brought?”
“Forty-six,” Mrs. Buchan called, in her element. The tubby lady had two crones and no fewer than four youngsters all milling obediently to her orders. “Like the old days! You poor English, starving to death.” She wagged a spoon to threaten me. “This poor auldie’s never tasted a drop of home brew in his life. The crime of it.”
Tinker raised suffering eyes long enough to wink.
“Forty-six,” I repeated. “Look around.” The kitchen was like a battlefield. “They aren’t choirboys, love. What would have happened if they hadn’t been paid? After loading, driving the convoy the length of the country? They’d have torn the place apart.”
Michelle shivered. “It’s all so violent. I mean…” She was bemused at the scale of things.
“Suddenly it seems, well, out of our hands.”
“It is, love. We’re halfway down the ski slope. No way of strolling back to the start, not now.” I patted her shoulder kindly. “Have some nosh, love. We’ve a lot to do.”
