A Prospect of Vengeance

As he spoke, the sound of another train rose, drowning the rest of his words as it increased, until it filled the cutting deafeningly. But, more than the noise which reverberated around him, Ian was filled from within with an almost panic-stricken feeling of unreality, which worsened as he glimpsed the train's occupants sitting and strap- hanging in safety and comfort in their brightly-lit carriages — late city-workers going home to suburban wives and husbands, girl-friends and boy-friends, families and friends ... or (since he didn't even know which way he was facing, up or down) going out happily for a night's West End entertainment, taking their real world for granted . . . while he was cowering illegally on railway property in the darkness, with heaven-only-knew what vile refuse crunching underfoot!

The noise fell away into echoes, which the wind of the train seemed to suck after it, down the line — up the line? And worse —

'Come on, now!' Buller moved into the deafening silence which the vanished train drew into the cutting, within the dummy2

enormous hum of that same real world above them, and all around them. 'We gotta get out of 'ere, Lady — Ian lad — ?'

And worse! (The drizzle, working down through the leaves above him into single larger drops of rain, spattering irregularly on his face now.) And worse: the whole of that world, real or unreal, had turned against him. Ever since Reg Buller had first changed all the rules with his bad news, so few hours ago, but which seemed like forever now — now

—

'Come on!'

He didn't want to move. This day had started unhopefully, yet then it had fed his ego deceptively, when he'd thought himself so clever. But from the moment he'd got through to Jenny its true nature had been revealed, albeit through a glass, darkly: the whole world out there was hostile, and full of dangers which he could no longer dismiss as imaginary.

'Come on — ' Buller had moved, lighting his own way first with the boy's inadequate pocket-torch, and then helping Jenny as she had followed, leaving Ian behind in the actual dark, as well as his inner darkness. So now the voice came further off. ' Mister Robinson!'

'I'm coming.' The feeble glow illuminated a great buttress, dark on his side and dirty yellow-brown on its railway side: the Victorian bricks in which London had burst outwards in its great days, in their untold billions; but now his feet were skidding and crushing on filthy modern detritus, of bottles dummy2

and cans and plastics, up against the wall and the buttress, all mixed with the leaf-compost of a hundred years.

'What's the matter?' Buller shone the torch into his eyes challengingly. 'We 'aven't got all night, y'know . . . You got the bag, 'ave yer?'

That was it! Ian felt the last strand of his patience snap, with the addition of the bag of congealing curries and rice and pickles to Buller's assumed 'working class' voice, which was designed to jolly him along, challenging him to behave like an officer and a gentleman, and not let the side down.

'No.' He rounded the buttress, and then set his back against it, as though exhausted. 'This is far enough.'

'What?' The torch came back to him.

'Darling — when we get to the car — ' Jenny supported the torch — ' — and I'm getting wet, too!'

'Damn the car!' When they reached the BMW, he would be driving it. And then it would be too late, because he would have to concentrate on his driving. And . . . maybe they were both relying on that. 'I want to know what's happening to me.' As he spoke, he knew that he had the whip-hand: even apart from her unwillingness to drive and Reg Buller's careless intake of alcohol (and consequently even greater unwillingness), they couldn't leave him behind now, with whatever they each had in mind — not with Paul Mitchell out there . . . whoever else was out there.

The light continued to blind him. But behind it, in the dummy2

absolute darkness, they must each be coming to the same conclusion. So he leaned back, and let the enormous weight of brick support him, just as it had held up the whole of Cody Street for a hundred years, above all the trains which had used this cutting.

'Fff — ' Buller cracked first, but then remembered Jenny.

'What are you playing at, Ian?' Jenny was not so inhibited, so she sounded unnaturally shrill. 'My God! Aren't things bad enough already? With — ' The rest of the words were cut off by the rumble of another train, which approached them more slowly so that, where before her face had been only flickeringly illuminated, disco strobe- lighted, now he saw its anger and intensity as the noise enveloped them again.

'No . . . no!' Buller came back first. 'He's right. You got to level with him, Lady — that's only fair. And now's as good a time as any.'

'What?' She sounded incredulous, as well as angry.

'About Mitchell, Lady.' Clink.

' What — ?' From incredulity-and-anger to doubt. 'But ... I told him about Mitchell, Mr Buller: he's their blue-eyed boy

— and he knows Audley — ?'

'Ah! And then — ?' Buller paused. And the torch went out, and the pause elongated.

'I don't know what you're talking about, Mr Buller.'

She stopped him sharply on her own full stop. 'Ian — Ian ...

we had a three-way talk this morning — Reg, and John Tully dummy2