A Fairly Dangerous Thing

by Reginald Hill

‘I bet. Hey, what about a game next Saturday? You look as if you could do with some fresh air?’

  Next Saturday! How wonderful to be able to talk of next Saturday as though the world did not end there.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Joe. ‘I can’t. I’m booked up.’

  ‘Aha! A woman!’

  ‘No,’ said Joe vehemently, suddenly aware that Maggie was within earshot.

  ‘Then if it’s not a woman, it must be that bloody house of yours. They’re the only two things which interfere with your golf. Well?’

  ‘You should have been a detective,’ said Joe, thinking that at least he could be permitted some tragic irony. They might all remember this when he was languishing in jail. ‘Yes, I’m off to Averingerett. It’s about time I finished this thesis.’

  He waved a cardboard wallet in the air and a couple of loose sheets of paper fell out. Maggie picked them up and glanced down at them. One was the personal list which Cess had told him to make. The other was a copy of Bertie’s list, with certain additional information about some items for Lord Jim’s benefit. Though why he should be interested in the exact weight of things Joe could not imagine.

  ‘You have been working hard,’ said Maggie, handing the papers back. She looked at Joe with new respect.

  ‘Not really,’ said Joe. ‘Just thinking about it. You’ve got to get your materials together.’

  It was odd how guilty he felt talking to Maggie. Guilty at his absurd lies. Guilty at the memory of Alice’s slender legs locking round his buttocks.

  ‘And you’re going on Saturday? You always said you’d take me some day,’ said Maggie, smiling magnificently at him.

  Christ! She can’t mean it! She’s not going to pick this moment to forgive and forget! thought Joe in a panic.

  ‘I’m booked up on Saturday this week,’ Maggie went on. ‘But it’s open on Sunday, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes. Oh yes. It is,’ said Joe, his mind racing. ‘But I’ve got to go on Saturday. I’ve made arrangements. I know the chief steward and he lets me work in one of the private rooms. The Trevigores are away, you see, and as I say, I’ve made arrangements …’

  You’re gabbling, he told himself. You’re talking too much. And you’re not sounding convincing. She’s ready to bury the hatchet, which is what you want, but this sounds like a snub. But what can I do? I might be in jail in a few days’ time!

  Maggie nodded, her smile merely polite now.

  ‘I see,’ she said. ‘What a pity. Another time.’

  She turned away.

  You’re a fool! Joe told himself. For all you know, you’ll wake up on Sunday morning a free man with three thousand quid in your pocket. A man could get married on that. You could pretend it was a dowry or something. Tell mam it’s an old Cohen custom; that might calm her down a bit!

  ‘Maggie,’ he said, more loudly than he intended. At the same time he caught her arm and turned her body towards him. Everyone else in the staff-room watched the scene with undisguised interest.

  ‘Yes?’ she said.

  ‘I do have to go on Saturday,’ he said, ‘but that’s no reason why I shouldn’t go again on Sunday. Or any other day. I would love to take you. Nothing would please me more.’

  Maggie glanced round at her colleagues.

  ‘Well, that’s all right then,’ she said. But the warmth of her tone belied the casualness of her words. The bell sounded the start of morning school and there was a general movement to the door. Maggie detached herself gently from Joe’s grip.

  ‘See you later,’ she said, squeezing his hand.

  While the prospect of a full reconciliation with Maggie was a source of great comfort to Joe, he was very conscious now that the nightmare of the plan to enter Averingerett was fast approaching reality. Maggie would probably have gone out with him immediately, he felt sure. She wasn’t the kind to play hard to get without good reason. But some outmoded sense of chivalry made him reluctant to start things going again until Saturday was over. After that, all being well, Sergeant Prince would have a fight on his hands.

  In any case, he was expecting daily to be summoned for the final briefing and he didn’t want to start his rehabilitation with Maggie by breaking a date.

  And he knew that, if Cess called, he would certainly break the date.

  The briefing took place on the Friday night and was something of an anti-climax. Lord Jim called just as he was about to go into Alice’s for a bite of supper. He had started avoiding her again in the face of his new committal to Maggie; but he had decided that, if he owed it to Maggie to postpone their reconciliation in case he was jailed, he owed it to himself to take a long farewell of Alice for the very same reason.

  ‘Smells nice,’ said Jim. ‘Cess’d like a word.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Joe to Alice, and to Jim, ‘I’ll drive myself.’

  ‘Suit yourself,’ said Lord Jim.

  Joe left him standing in the hall and went to get his car.

  To his surprise when he arrived at the pub, Cess met him in the bar. None of the others was in sight.

  ‘Hello, Joe,’ said the ginger man. ‘You needn’t order. This won’t take but a minute. You know the oak-tree junction on the main road seven miles this side of Averingerett?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘There’s an unclassified road off to the left about two hundred yards before you reach it. There’s a lay-by about fifty yards up there, not so much a lay-by, more a bit of hard-standing at the road side. You be there at two-thirty tomorrow. Got that?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Joe surprised. ‘Two-thirty? In the morning?’

  Cess rolled his eyes.

  ‘Jesus,’ he said. ‘No. The afternoon. We’re going to bloody Averingerett, aren’t we? And they shut the gates at six, don’t they?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Joe. ‘How do we get out?’

  ‘You let me worry. Just you be there on time. Look for a Bedford van. Cheerio.’

  Bewildered, Joe headed for the door. Just coming in was Cynthia.

  ‘Hello, Joe,’ she said.

  ‘Hello, Cyn.’

  ‘Look after yourself, eh?’

  Touched, he nodded wordlessly and stood by to let her past.

  ‘And if there’s any trouble,’ she murmured, ‘don’t start swinging punches. You’re not cut out for it. Just run like hell.’

  ‘I promise,’ he said fervently.

  Nice girl, he thought out in the street. Who’s more to be pitied—her or Mrs Carter? Either. Both. All of us!

  The real briefing, he worked out with some bitterness, must have taken place days earlier. Only he had been kept in the dark till the last minute, and, even then, just given a rendezvous place and time.

  Stuff them all! he thought, driving home, warmed by the thought of the soldier’s farewell there was going to be plenty of time for after all.

  But when he knocked at Alice’s door there was no reply. She can’t have gone out, he thought and tried again. Still nothing. Perhaps there was something wrong. He started banging with both fists and was so carried away by his own percussion rhythms that when the door was suddenly pulled open he almost smashed his fist into Lord Jim’s face.

  ‘Oh it’s you,’ grunted the little man. He was wearing only his trousers. His face was flushed and his magnificently muscled torso gleamed with perspiration. He looked as if he had just come last in a fell race.

  The two men faced each other unspeaking for a moment.

  ‘I was just having your supper,’ said Jim finally.

  ‘Jim,’ called Alice’s voice plaintively.

  ‘Steak pie,’ added Jim. ‘There’s plenty.’

  There was almost a note of appeal in his voice.

  ‘Jim!’ called Alice again, more insistently.

  Joe stepped back from the door.

  ‘No. No thanks. You finish it,’ he said. ‘But don’t bite off more than you can chew.’

  It wasn’t a bad line. But it was hardly compensation for the soldier’s farewell. Thoughts of the battle ahead crowded
in on him as he wearily made his way upstairs to a cold supper and a lonely bed.

  He lay awake for a long time, listening again and again to Garland singing ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow,’ till Vardon jumped up beside him and, somewhat comforted, he drifted into a sleep which God (who is good to sinners) swept clean of the threatened nightmares and filled instead with the warm, white, lucent, million-pleasured breasts of Maisie Uppadine.

  Chapter II

  Mindful of Cess’s warning, he was ready in plenty of time the next day. The phone rang as he was on the point of leaving the flat. It was Cess.

  ‘I’m just off,’ Joe said.

  ‘No hurry, Joe,’ said Cess. ‘You don’t want to get there early. It’s bad for the nerves, hanging about. Everything OK?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Got everything you need?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Right then. See you later.’

  ‘Was that all you wanted?’ asked Joe angrily.

  ‘Don’t be so touchy, lad,’ said Cess, aggrieved. ‘I was just checking that you were all right. A friendly word can help a lot at a time like this.’

  Surprisingly, Joe found himself believing him. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘It was a kind thought. I’ll see you soon.’

  Quickly he checked round the flat once more. It wouldn’t be helpful to leave a tap running at a time like this and have everyone out looking for him. Vardon watched him impatiently, obviously bent on getting back into Joe’s bed the minute he left.

  The thought flashed through Joe’s mind that if things went wrong, this might be the last time he saw the flat for a long time. Did they let you home from the nick to collect your gear? More likely a gaggle of ham-fisted coppers would come and turn everything over. He thought of them pulling open drawers, running their fingers through his special-occasion way-out underwear, reading his private letters, emptying the box in which he kept his emergency supply of contraceptives. Vardon would be furious. He hoped some of them liked cats.

  ‘Cheerio, you fat pig,’ he said. Vardon yawned disdainfully. It was time to go.

  It took two turns of the key to get the VW started. An omen? Three black birds settled on a chimney stack at the end of the street. He searched in his memories of folklore to find a significance for them, but could only come up with the ‘twa corbies’ of the ballad. That was bad enough. He glanced up at them as he approached the main-road junction and almost collided with a dark-green Hillman which was cutting the corner rather fine. Instinctively he stamped on the brake and was thrown forward against the steering wheel. The Hillman halted also, almost alongside.

  Joe wound down the window.

  ‘You stupid bastard!’ he yelled at the man dimly visible behind the dusty glass. The woman passenger leaned across and opened the door. It was Maggie.

  ‘Hi!’ she said with a bright smile. ‘You should look where you’re going.’

  Beside her, smiling too, was Sergeant Prince looking very sporty in a flowered T-shirt and orange slacks.

  ‘No harm done anyway,’ Maggie went on. ‘I’m glad we caught you. Just off to Averingerett, are you? Well, do you have room for a small passenger and a large picnic-basket?’

  ‘My idea,’ said Prince. ‘I’ve been summoned for duty. No rest for the anti-wicked. It seemed a shame to waste a nice day and a picnic, so I told her to find herself another poor bachelor.’

  ‘And I knew you were off to do the stately homes bit again, so here I am,’ said Maggie, almost defiantly.

  There had to be an excuse. I’ve changed my mind. I’m not going. But she might go by herself and see him there. I’ve arranged to take somebody else. Better, but the same objection.

  In any case, any refusal would be a humiliation for her. He might as well say I don’t take pig’s leftovers and drive on.

  Whatever he did, he couldn’t take her. It was out of the question. Absolutely.

  ‘Careful with the basket. There’s a bottle of hock in a plastic bag filled with ice,’ said Maggie as she climbed in beside him. ‘Thanks for the lift, Maurice. Don’t accept any dud alibis.’

  ‘Have fun,’ said Prince, letting in the clutch. ‘Take care of her.’

  A warning? wondered Joe, his brain racing madly. Prince was on to him. Maggie was a plant. At the first sign of anything odd, she’d be on the phone in a flash.

  ‘Right, Joseph,’ she said leaning back in her seat, ‘you may drive me to Lord Trevigore’s.’

  He had to return her smile. No, it was impossible; there was no subterfuge here. In fact the whole scene had been stamped with Maggie’s personal brand of complete honesty. Prince wasn’t for her, not as a serious long-term proposition. So she’d make this quite clear, as nicely as possible. While he, Joe, had been weighed in the balance and found wanted.It sounded cold-blooded, but he knew it wasn’t like that. If anything, it was very flattering. But what the hell was he going to do?

  He had stalled the engine. When he turned the key to start it again, the sudden noise startled the three birds and they rose laboriously into the air on ragged wings, croaking harshly.

  ‘I’ve got the message,’ muttered Joe and turned the car carefully into the main road.

  They didn’t speak for the next ten minutes until the buildings began to thin out and the soft summer greenery to fill in.

  ‘You don’t mind, do you, Joe?’ asked Maggie suddenly.

  ‘Of course not,’ croaked Joe, his sincerity at one level clashing harshly with his insincerity at another.

  ‘Good,’ she said happily. ‘When Maurice got this call, I wasn’t really disappointed, just a bit at first, but then I suddenly thought, what I’d really like to do is go to Averingerett with Joe. You did say you’d take me.’

  ‘Yes. Did I? It’s different now,’ said Joe as though she might say Well, in that case, drop me here. I’ll go home.

  ‘How?’

  ‘They’ve got lions.’ Bloody lions! If it wasn’t for the stupid damned lions he mightn’t be here now, on his way to a house-breaking.

  ‘Of course they have. Super! Lions and an expert guide!’

  She settled back again, radiating complete animal content.

  Oh, God! thought Joe. If only this was another day, another place! What shall I do? She had to be got rid of. He couldn’t miss the rendezvous. And certainly he couldn’t turn up at the house with her and the car. Either would be disastrous. Both unforgivable.

  Surreptitiously he glanced at his watch. Still a bit of time in hand. Get rid of her, get rid of her! The thought was running in panic round his mind. But how? without being obvious. How?

  Make her suggest it; make her want to go.

  Be nasty? Say something snide about Prince? Start a quarrel somehow.

  It was in a flash. There was one area in which they had never been able to reach full agreement. They could fall out here and she wouldn’t be able to hold it against him.

  Two minutes later he turned into a side-road and then turned again and bumped along a hawthorn-hedged lane for ten or fifteen yards before stopping the car.

  She looked at him, mildly surprised.

  ‘Breath of air,’ he said, glancing at his watch again.

  ‘All right,’ she said.

  They walked hand in hand a little further down the lane, till they reached a gate which overlooked a field of young barley.

  ‘Over we go,’ said Joe. He let his hand rest boldly on her thigh as he helped her over. There was no time for subtlety. In fact the more blatant he was, the sooner she would reject his advances.

  He took her in his arms and kissed her as soon as they got into the field, then sank to the ground, pulling her down after him.

  There was no resistance, just a self-containment which boded well. She was poised for action, he felt.

  He ignored the shallows where his advances had usually foundered in the past and sought an instant rebuff by pulling her skirt roughly up round her behind. Still nothing. He stuck his thumbs inside her pants and began dragging them down the swoo
ningly smooth slopes of her thighs. As they passed over her knees she drew his head down to hers and kissed him passionately. He gasped for breath beneath the violence of her onslaught, and his heart sank as he felt her legs kicking the pants over her ankles. Then one hand came down to the buckle of his belt. And he knew he was lost.

  The next ten minutes were the most humiliating of his life. His motives for being there, his awareness of the night ahead, his sense of the omnipresence of Cess and Lord Jim, all came between him and the business in hand. His usually over-eager flesh failed miserably, refusing to respond to even the most intimate ministration from Maggie. Finally they lay apart and he gazed up at the bright blue sky whose gaiety now seemed to have an edge of cruelty and even the jolly yellow sun seemed to be mocking him.

  ‘Did I do something wrong?’ she asked.

  ‘No. Oh no. Nothing. Nothing.’

  She hesitated a moment.

  ‘Is there something that helps? I mean, should I be wearing stockings? Or black lace? Something like that. I read somewhere that …’

  ‘No! Nothing like that. It’s nothing like that. Really.’

  He stood and began dressing himself. Slowly she followed suit. It was like the setting of the sun.

  Back in the car, he had recovered sufficiently to glance at his watch again. Time was short. Not that this first rendezvous was all that important. But he had to get there; and without Maggie.

  He began to back the car down the lane. As he slowed down at the entrance to the road, he saw his salvation slowly breasting a rise about two furlongs away. A bus.

  He stopped the car, jumped out and hurried round to Maggie’s door.

  She stared at him incredulously.

  ‘Again?’ she asked. He ignored her.

  ‘Maggie,’ he said, ‘I’m sorry about everything. Please, do you mind? I’d like to be alone. To think. It means a lot. To a man. Could you, would you, go back to town by yourself? On the bus?’

  Now her incredulity was anything but slight.

  ‘What?’ she cried.

  ‘Maggie, please!’ The bus was approaching fast. The panic in his voice must have sounded like a cry from a wounded spirit, for she softened immediately.

  ‘If that’s what you want, Joe.’