“No!” a Sidoli shouted. “Noh,” the tunnel yelled angrily.
Dobson backed smiling out of the tunnel entrance to where I’d first cannoned into the Guards band, his goons with him. I came on. They were in a perfect line. A stern warning cry, “Loof-yoy! No!” behind me.
If I’d known it would end like this, in a grotty tunnel, I’d have marched out into the arena with the band and hared up through the crowd somehow—
An engine gunned, roared. It seemed to fill the tunnel with its noise. I hesitated, found myself halted, gaping, as a slab lorry ran across the arch of pallor and simply swept Dobson and the two overcoats from view. And from the face of the earth. All in an instant, time stopped. To me, forever Dobson and the two nerks froze in a grotesque array, legs and arms any old how, in an airborne bundle with that fairground slab wagon revving past. They’re in that lethal tableau yet in my mind. Dobson’s expression gets me most, in the candle hours. It’s more of a let’s- talk-because-there’s-always-tomorrow sort of expectation on his face. But maybe I’m wrong because it was pretty gloomy, and Ern didn’t have any lights on as he crashed the wagon into and over Dobson and his nerks.
Footsteps alongside. I closed my eyes, waiting.
Big Chas’s hand fell on my shoulder. “Lovejoy,” he said, friendly, and sang, “Hear thy guardian angel say; ‘Thou art in the midst of foes: Watch and pray!’ ”
“I’m doing that, Chas,” I said.
Mr. Sidoli was overjoyed to see me; I wasn’t sure why. They gave me a glass of his special Barolo while I waited. I’d expected death. Unbelievably, I was left alone on the steps, though everybody I remembered came up and shook my hand. The fairground seemed to have grown. There was no sign of Bissolotti’s rival fair. Instead, a marquee boasted a dynamic art show, periodically lasering the darkness with a sky advert.
Francie rushed up to say everybody was proud of me. Her whiz kid was temporarily running the Antique Road Show. Like Tom the cabin boy, I smiled and said nothing, simply waited for this oddly happy bubble to burst.
It was twenty to midnight when I was called inside. Mr. Sidoli was in tears. His silent parliament was all around, celebrating and half sloshed.
“Loof-yoy,” he said, scraping my face with his mustache and dabbing his eyes. “What can I say?”
“Well, er.” Starting to hope’s always a bad sign.
“First,” he declaimed, “you bravely seize Bissolotti’s main generator, and crush his treacherous sneak attack.” He glowered. Everybody halted the rejoicing to glower. “And restrained yourself so strongly that you only destroyed three men.”
Scattered applause. “Bravo, bravo!”
“Destroyed? Ah, how actually destroyed…?”
His face fell. “Not totally, but never mind, Loof-yoy. Another occasion, si?” Laughter all round. “Then you cleverly tell the police it is my generator, so I can collect it and hold Bissolotti to ransom.”
This time I took a bow. The nephews burst into song.
“And at the arena you bravely tried to spare my nephews then the risk when they go to help you, knowing how close to my heart…” He sobbed into a hankie the size of a bath towel. Everybody sniffled, coughed, drank. I even felt myself fill up.
“And you walk forward into certain death!”
I was gripped in powerful arms. Ern and Chas sang a martial hymn. Fists thumped my back.
When you think of it, I really had been quite courageous. In fact, very brave. Not many blokes have faced two mobs down. It must be something about my gimlet eyes. You must admit that some blokes have this terrific quality, and others don’t.
Joan was watching in her usual silence. Her eyes met mine. Well, I thought, suddenly on the defensive. I’d been almost nearly brave, hadn’t I? I mean, honestly? Joan smiled, right into my eyes, silly cow. She’s the sort of woman who can easily nark a bloke. I’d often noticed that.
They’d have finished the auction in Tachnadray.
It was three o’clock in the morning before I remembered Tinker. Sidoli’s lads found him paralytic drunk busking in George Street, Dutchie doing a political chain dance round his political granite block. Without a bean, or even a hacksaw, they’d done the best they could, which was to scrounge from an affable public to tunes from Tinker’s mouth organ. Tinker said we’d all go halves. His beret was full of coins, enough for a boozy breakfast for us all.
« ^
—— 31 ——
Countryside. No rain, no fog. And, at Tachnadray, no longer only one way out. Me, Duncan, and Trembler were talking outside the workshop. They’d taken on half a dozen apprentices. From the quality of their work I wouldn’t have paid them tea money, but Duncan said they’d learn.
“Make sure you spread them about this time.” I meant the reproductions they were going to mass-produce. “One each to East Anglia, Newcastle, Liverpool, Glasgow, Bristol, and Southampton. Stick to one route and you’re in the clag.”
“We’ve had enough trouble,” Duncan said with feeling.
“You didn’t have any,” I pointed out nastily. After all, I was the hero. “Okay, your son was a hostage, but safe. He’s a McGunn.”
“There’s no trouble for you now, Lovejoy, eh? I mean, those two men, and the others?”
“Tipper Noone? And the driver? No. Whatever the police find won’t matter a bit. Dobson and his killers are dead.”
The vehicle was fixed by Ern, a spontaneous case of brake failure. The police could enjoy themselves speculating on the guns found on two of the deceased. I, of course, wasn’t within miles. I sprouted alibis, Sidoli’s doing.
